


He Made Me Who I Am

by aroacewritingplace



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Video Game 2018), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post Iron Man 3, Blackmail, But also, Chitauri - Freeform, College, First Kiss, Gangs, Good because I stole ideas from it but also it's halfway canon so make of that what you will, Gwen Stacy (very briefly), I make my own canon, I make the rules here buster, Iron Man - Freeform, Iron Man 3, Kidnapping, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, Manipulation, Metalworking, New York City, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker is a dumpster diver, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Iron Man 3, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Remember Spider-Man: Homecoming?, Roommates, Secret Identity, Spider-Man - Freeform, Spider-man villains, Stark Tower, Thai takeout, They're in college now because I said so, Titanium (not the Iron Man villain), Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark is a Dumbass, Tourism, boat ride, not gonna reveal who tho, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-02-29 19:40:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 49,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroacewritingplace/pseuds/aroacewritingplace
Summary: When Harley Keener was eleven, Iron Man showed up and changed his life.Then he left, and Harley's life became exponentially worse.





	1. Prologue / When He Was a Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not the way he thought it would go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, like I love Parley fics, don't get me wrong. But I'm bored as hell of all these ones where Tony just randomly invites Harley up to New York. They're sweet, love 'em, but I want something else. So I wrote it.

Tony Stark crashing into his life was one of the best things to ever happen to Harley.

  
Sure, it was stressful. And difficult. And scary. Even now, sometimes Harley could still feel the pressure of that awful, creepy Savin man’s arm on his throat, but ultimately, Tony had gotten them out, and they had been okay.

  
Then, even after Tony left, Harley came home to a garage full of incredible, exciting equipment, and a note from the man who had given him so much already, the man he had been able to help in return for a short while.

  
So it wasn’t like Harley expected anything more, especially when, on his next birthday, there was a birthday card marked for him that arrived with a package of new tools signed by “The Mechanic”. Something similar happened the following birthday, this time another birthday card and some money.

  
But he couldn’t spend it, because his mom was in the hospital, she was sick, and she was dying. Harley could still clearly picture the heart monitor that constantly stayed by her side and the vivid image of her thin and ailing frame in the bright white hospital bed next to it. “Stage four brain cancer,” nurses whispered when they thought Harley was sleeping. “One more day and it would have been too late,” was the most positive diagnosis Harley had ever heard come out of the doctor’s mouth. He stayed by her bed with Abby, going home on days they had school and coming back. He was only eleven, and Abby was eight, but they did what they could to stay with their mom and keep their tiny home out on the outskirts of town where no one bothered them for themselves.  
He thought that maybe that the cash he got was on purpose, and that Tony knew what was happening with his mom, and that he was sending help.

  
His mom got sicker, day after day, and there was nothing.

  
Nothing on the day that his mom began seizing, her head jerking back and forth in a horrible fashion that caused her arms and legs to twitch and spasm, sending doctors into the room and pushing Harley out, and he was only just outside the room before he heard the horrible monotone of a flatline behind him.

  
That day, social services came to him while he was sitting in a waiting room chair numbly with his sister’s hand in his. For a split second, the social worker with the dark hair and sunglasses looked like Tony, but it didn’t sound like him when he told Harley that they couldn’t go back to their home now except to grab some clothes, and Harley didn’t know what the word “foreclosed” meant, but after he packed his favorite t-shirts and his brown bear that he still slept with, he tried to go into his garage to get his workbook, but was told that he couldn’t go in, that it wasn’t his house anymore. A hand grabbed his arm, but he turned and bit it before running into the side door of the garage and grabbing his red notebook, which was full of his sketches and ideas and plans. He tried to grab more: his potato gun, his toolkit, but the people from the hospital rushed in and pushed him out, keeping their hands far away from his mouth now.

  
They took him to a home that was crowded with kids and put him in a room stuffed full with even more kids, and they told him that someday, he would be adopted by new parents.

  
“I want my mom back,” he said, and they told him his mom wasn’t coming back, and he understood but he didn’t care.

  
“Tony Stark is going to adopt me,” he said to the other boys in his room. “We’re connected. He said so.”

  
The other boys pushed him and punched him until he stopped talking and started crying, and he never mentioned Tony again. He thought about him, though, until his birthday rolled around again. When the mail came in, Harley was bouncing on the balls of his feet, certain that there would be that same red envelope that there had been the past few years. When he was asked by one of the boys in his room what he was waiting for, he said that Tony Stark was going to give him a present.

The only presents he got that year were a split lip and the air knocked out of him. It was after that that Harley began to waver in his hope.

  
“He didn’t forget about me,” he whispered one night into his pillow. He slept without his bear now, it had been taken from him the first few days he got there by one of the bigger boys, who “played” with it until he decided to give it back to Harley without the arms or legs. “We’re connected. He said so.” Teardrops fell on his pillow, soaking into the coarse fabric. “He wouldn’t forget about me.”

  
The day that Abby got adopted was one of the worst days of Harley’s life. They were both taken in to meet their potential new parents, but the couple only wanted one kid, and that was Abby. They promised that they would let the siblings keep in touch and Abby’s new parents gave the orphanage an address to give to Harley so he could write letters, but he never saw it. She was crying as hugged Harley for the last time, and Harley was too, he was shaking, sobbing, but there was nothing to be done about it, and Abby left, and Harley never saw her again.

  
When he went back to his room after Abby left, one of the oldest boys, Martin, sneered at him for crying, called him a “pussy”, and pushed him roughly across the room. While the other boys jeered, Harley only saw red, and he clenched his small twelve-year-old fist with all his might and swung at Martin, punching him messily across the cheek. It made him feel good, made him feel better, so he swung again, and again, and again until the supervisors were pulled Harley off of Martin and Martin’s nose was streaming blood down his face and the rest of the boys stared at Harley in shocked surprise.

  
The following years passed slowly for Harley, a dull crawl through middle school, through high school. The only thing that made high school worth anything at all was fighting. Harley had found an underground ring that he managed to get a job at, with the orphanage’s permission. He swept the floors after school every day and he didn’t get paid, but he got to fight, which made him money anyway.

  
His opponents never saw his face - it was protected with a mask for fear they’d find out he was only fifteen. The fighting came intuitively to him, though it was messy at first. He took out all emotions in his fights- the annoyance of kids at school, the sadness from losing Abby, the grief from losing his mom, and the frustration of Martin and the others in the room at the orphanage. There was one feeling he never tapped into, though, one he pushed down until it burned, one he added to every year when his birthday rolled by. The little kid still in him would look, every year, for an envelope from his former hero, but it never came, and so Harley pushed down his resentment and anger toward Tony Stark until it burned.

  
When he was sixteen, he sent in an application to Stark Internships - it had made big news that a high school kid had been accepted as an intern there. Harley couldn't remember his name, but he thought that maybe if he got accepted, Tony would remember him, or at the very least he'd get the hell out of Rose Hill. He sent his application in along with a prototype of an invention he had created with the funds he got from fighting - glasses that, potentially could be used to help colorblind people see color more vibrant than ever before.

  
He never heard back.

  
Harley used that newfound anger to get a perfect score on the SAT, to apply to New York University, a college only a few miles away from Stark Tower. He knew he could have gone anywhere with his grades and scores - Harvard, MIT, Berkeley. But this was where he wanted to go.

  
Because, as he grew older, and started digging deeper online, Harley found he wasn’t the only one with a burning hatred for the iron-suited billionaire. There were plenty of boards and forums on the deeper web, forums that Harley browsed late at night under his covers instead of sleeping. He talked to people, some powerful, and some not, hiding his name under the moniker “Titanium”.

  
Now that he was in New York, it was time to get to work, get in contact.

  
But he couldn’t do that yet. He still had two large boxes by his side and a backpack over his shoulder, and he stood in front of a plain brown door with the numbers “6CD” hanging in the center. In his hand, he held his room key, a simple gold key with the words “Property of New York University” engraved into the metal. Before he could fit the key into the lock, however, the doorknob turned.

  
In front of him was a guy his age, extremely cute with messy brown hair that was oddly flattened, like he had been wearing a hat all day. He blinked large, light brown eyes quickly for a moment, then smiled brightly with lips that Harley instantly wanted to capture with his own.

  
“You must be my roommate,” he said, holding out his hand. “Hi, I’m Peter Parker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought? It's a lot of exposition, but it's necessary to catch people up with all the canon I'm screwing with lmao! Comments and kudos let me know how I'm doing :)  
> tumblr: the-end-of-endgame (spoilers afoot in there, beware)


	2. Chapter One / Moving In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter meets his new roommate, yay! He's got a southern accent! Peter gets shot!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do bank vaults still exist? Asking for a friend.  
> also the chapter summary is not as aggressive as I'm making it out to be lmao! he'll be fine, but that country accent might kill him.
> 
> Thanks for all the kind comments on the prologue! I appreciate each and every one of you <3

The boy in front of him frowned. “I thought my roommate was supposed to be, uh I think it was Alexei Kravinoff?” he said, looking down at the key in his hand. “I had his email.”

Peter Parker didn’t know he had a thing for southern accents, and he struggled to keep his face clear of both attraction and lingering guilt as he shrugged his shoulders, not really sure how to respond to that. “No, uh, I think he was arrested the other day.” He fumbled with the door handle a little and stepped back to pull the door open wider. “I was supposed to have a single room, but they decided to room us together last minute.”

The other boy balked, mouth dropping a little. “Arrested? What for?”

It wasn’t exactly public knowledge that Spider-Man had taken down Kraven last night, so Peter wasn’t exactly sure how to explain. “Uh… murder.”

“Jesus Christ.” He didn't ask for any more information, thankfully, but the southern twang intensified, and Peter wanted to hide his face in his hands because he was sure that his face was actually on fire by now. 

The golden-haired boy picked up the boxes by his side and stepped through, and Peter couldn’t help but turn his head to stare after him, especially the display of strong arms he showed off carrying the two boxes. He swallowed his dry throat and nearly choked on it. “So, uh, what’s your name?”

“Harley Keener,” he said. “This my side?”

“Uh, yeah,” Peter stammered, crossing the room so he was leaning against the wall next to his bed. “Where, um are you from?”

Harley looked out the window. “There’s a fire escape,” he noted.

“Yeah,” Peter huffed a chuckle, smiling good-naturedly. “It’s New York City and we’re six floors up. Of course there’s a fire escape.”

Harley shot him a dark look. “I’m from Rose Hill, Tennessee,” he said shortly. “I don’t know jack shit about New York.”

Peter held up his hands placatingly and felt his smile dip a little. He wasn’t sure why his new, incredibly cute roommate was being so frosty towards him, but it was putting his spider-sense on edge for reasons he couldn’t quite locate. “Hey, sorry. I had no clue. I was born and raised in Queens.”

Harley raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “And where’s Queens?”

Peter pointed a thumb east. “Across the East River. But I live here now.” He cleared his throat again and looked up towards his bed. “Obviously. Sorry.”

Harley plugged in his laptop, then looked at Peter again. “What are you majoring in here?” he asked slowly, cautiously.

Peter could feel himself starting to relax slightly now at the more casual, less barbed conversation. “Uh, biochemistry. And robotics. And, maybe a biomedical engineering degree in the future, or something else.” He felt his cheeks burn, fully aware of how much he was bragging. “But, uh, nothing’s set in stone yet. Just biochem. I still have to pay for most of it, and, well,” he chuckled. “College is expensive.” 

The silence grew between them, thick and awkward. Harley pulled some books out of a box and stacked them messily next to his computer, but Peter couldn’t see any of the titles - they were all upside-down and the spines were facing away from him. “What are you majoring in?” he asked, just to cut the silence. “Or do you not know yet? I mean, it’s not unusual to not know what you’re going to major in, but I mean you’re at New York University, so you must be pretty smart, but, uh, I mean, not that-”

Harley cut him off. “I’m majoring in mechanical engineering,” he said. “And also robotics. Maybe as a minor. But, uh, yeah.” He swallowed and looked at Peter with a closed-lipped smile. “Listen, I, uh, I like to build stuff, so I tend to tinker a lot. If that’s gonna bother you, I can try and find somewhere else to do it.”

“Uh, no! That’s cool,” Peter stammered. “I do a lot of that, uh, too. But my boss usually lets me work on my stuff when I’m at my job- well, it’s not really a job, it’s technically an internship, but it’s been an internship for a few years now so I’m hoping that now that I’m an adult, I can actually get, you know, a real job or whatever.”

“Where do you work?” Harley asked, spinning around in his chair idly. “It must be a pretty cool place if your boss lets you do whatever you want.”

Peter huffed air out his nose and smiled slightly, shaking his head. “Well, I wouldn’t say that. Mr. Stark keeps me busy a lot. Uh, that’s where I work. At Stark Industries. I’m an intern.”

Harley had stopped spinning, and his face grew dark and stony. Then he shook his head, smiling thinly. “Of course.”

The hair on Peter’s arms began to prickle again. “What do you mean, ‘of course’?”

“Nothing.” Harley’s phone buzzed. He picked it up, and his brow furrowed. “Listen, I’ve got to go, I’m meeting up with some…” he paused, momentarily distracted by the message on his phone. “Some friends, I guess.” He looked up at Peter and Peter could see he was trying for a friendly expression, but his blue eyes were stormy, and his jaw was clenched. “Maybe was can see if we have similar schedules later.”

Peter nodded. “Yeah, sure. Hey, listen,” he said, catching Harley before he exited the dorm. “Uh, how about later I can show you around Manhattan? I know some of the best spots around town, especially the best-” he bit his tongue, realizing he was about to say ‘rooftops’. That would raise suspicion if none of his other activities did. God, why couldn’t he have kept his single room? “The best restaurants around town. We could go out to eat sometime.” His face burned again. “Not, like, a date or anything, but I just mean, like, roommates, I don’t mean to assume that- I just meant, uh,”

Harley’s face hadn’t changed. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.” He looked at Peter curiously. “Anything else?”

Peter tapped his fingers against the plaster wall with its peeling brown paint. “My job,” he started, tensing at the darkening look on Harley’s face. “I have pretty late shifts there, so I’ll be home pretty late most nights. Don’t worry, though, I’m quiet at night. Just wanted to get that out of the way.”

“Okay. Don’t wake me up,” Harley warned. “I really gotta go now.”

“Uh, yeah, of course! Sorry.” 

Peter stepped back, and Harley swept out the door, backpack in hand. “Bye, Parker.” The door slammed shut behind him.

Once gone, Peter crouched down to the floor, pressing his head between his hands. As Harley gradually got further away, Peter’s skin stopped tingling, but he was left more confused than ever. He didn’t seem to be dangerous, he just… didn’t seem to like Mr. Stark for whatever reason. Which was probably it. Peter just associated people who didn’t like Mr. Stark with “the bad guys”, but Harley wasn’t a bad guy. Just cute as hell.

Exhaling slowly through pursed lips, Peter picked up his phone and typed a message to his group chat, asking if anyone wanted to chat. Almost instantly, Ned called, and Peter moved to lay on his bed and hold his phone above him. “Hey, Ned.” 

“Hey!” Ned waved cheerfully with one hand. He was sitting outside against a huge tree that Peter couldn’t see the top of. He had headphones in, which made Peter feel a little safer talking. “How’s NYU?”

Peter groaned slightly. “I think my roommate hates me. But I’m also confused because he’s really hot. And from Tennessee.”

“Uh oh. Roommate?” Ned asked. “I thought you were trying to get a single room so you could-” He pressed his middle finger and ring finger to his palm and pushed it forward. “Pssh! You know?”

“Dude!” Peter exclaimed. “You still can’t do that.”

“Right, sorry. Why would your roommate hate you?”

Peter frowned, scrunching up his face. “I don’t know. I think he might just not like Mr. Stark. Or something. He made my, uh,” he touched his arm. “Go off.”

Ned frowned too. “Weird. You think it’s anything worth telling him about?”

“Who, Mr. Stark?” Peter shook his head. “Nah, not yet, anyway. Maybe I’m just not used to new people.” He sighed. “I miss you. I sorta wish I had come to MIT with you.”

Ned nodded solemnly. “Yeah, but you’re needed here. It’d be super weird if you-know-who started swinging around the trees of Massachusetts.”

Peter laughed. “Yeah, I’d have to rebrand myself. Squirrel-man.”

“Spider-Tree.”

“Spider-Squirrel.”

The names increased in ridiculous fashion for a while, growing more and more outlandish by the second. A notification buzzed into Peter’s screen, and Ned got it too. 

“Sorry guys, about to go out of service. Maybe in a few hours.” Peter read. “Dang, where is MJ nowadays?”

“I think she said Peru, last I heard?” Ned said. “I have no clue where they’re sending her next, though.”

“Hm,” Peter frowned pensively. MJ had, in true MJ fashion, taken the non-traditional route and was currently working with the United Nations, some humanitarian job that she was working at while also doing college courses online, actually through NYU just like Peter. “Hopefully she’s doing okay. I haven’t talked to her in forever.”

“Me neither,” Ned said. “I’m sure she’s fine though, it’s MJ.”

“It is,” Peter agreed. He looked at the clock. “Hey, I should probably go, it’s about time for me to start patrol.”

“Hey, wait!” Ned protested. “You didn’t tell me about him being hot yet.”

Peter had momentarily forgotten about that, and now his face was burning again. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Liar,” Ned said good-naturedly. “But I’ll bug you ‘till you do. Text me if something good happens.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Peter buried his hot face in his hands. “Oh, my god, Ned!”

“Bye, Peter.”

Peter switched off his phone and flipped off his bed, shaking his head to clear the blush. He grabbed his key and put it into his pocket before leaving his room. 

He crossed the street from the exit of the university, walked a few blocks, and finally turned the corner to this old, run down, one-story building that had been purchased by Tony Stark a few years ago for a renovation project that had never been completed, and Peter was pretty sure Tony had forgotten about. Peter only accidentally stumbled across it himself while researching something else at work, and luckily, no one had bothered him any of the times he had been in there. 

Still, he took precautions. He took out his personal key for the place- another gold key, but with a different engraving - and unlocked the bolt on the front door, then unlocked the padlock on it. He stepped into the room, and pried the back wall panel open, pulling out his suit and web shooters. A few minutes later, his street clothes were back behind the wall, and he was locking the doors again, this time from the inside.

Then, he climbed the inside wall until he reached the open skylight. Popping out, Peter looked over what he could see of Manhattan.

His eyes automatically looked towards the sudden sound of police cars wailing. He jumped into the afternoon, web filament catching the glare of the sunlight. 

“Hi, Karen.”

“Good afternoon, Peter. How was moving into your college dorm?” The AI’s cool voice came through speakers on either side of Peter’s head. 

“It was good, but I don’t think my roommate likes me very much. Karen, can you sort through police scanners?”

“Of course. Why would your roommate dislike you? There’s a robbery occurring at Bank of America on 51st and 8th.”

“Thanks, on it!” Peter swung between two high-rises, waving quickly to the people eating on the rooftop restaurant. Phones were out, and people shouted, but Peter was off flipping over another building before so much as a photo could be taken. Peter shot a web at a street light and pulled himself through, tensing his body to increase the velocity with which he flung himself through the air. “And I don’t really know. I’m gonna talk to Mr. Stark about it tomorrow.”

“Mr. Stark reminds you to ‘call him Tony, for Christ’s sake’.”

“I’m working on it,” Peter grumbled. “What’s the status on the bank?”

“Police are nowhere in the area, but the department has been notified. Live social media feed shows at least three men with black ski masks and brown bags. One is brandishing a gun at the teller.”

“Oh, jeez, could these guys be any more cliche?” Peter dropped onto the roof of the bank, crawling down the side of the building and in through the open door. His lenses squinted and focused in on the scene as he silently scaled the inside of the building. There were customers who were bundled up against the side of the wall, huddling as one man in a black ski mask carelessly waved a gun around, loudly ordering the group of people to stay quiet and stay together. In the front, two others were talking in low voices to the bank tellers.

“Keep your hands where we can see ‘em,” the first man said.

“Listen, sweetheart, all we want is access to the vault and the money inside, and we’ll let you go. You won’t even be hurt. No one here has to get hurt. How about that?”

The bank teller stammered, keeping her hands up next to her head. The man thrust his gun towards her, and Peter lowered himself down on a web. “Hey fellas! News flash, bank vaults don’t exist in the 21st century! Everything is digital now. Shoulda thought of that before you tried to pull the most cliche crime to ever exist. With a flick of his wrists, Peter shot out two short webs and snatched the guns from the men’s hands, throwing them across the room, away from any other people. “Seriously, what the heck were you thinking? No, don’t bother answering.” He grabbed the third man’s gun while he was talking, and quickly webbed the two men’s mouths shut in front of him. 

“Karen, how long until the police get here?”

“They’re just around the corner.”

“Great!” Peter flipped down, yanking the third guy away from the huddle of people and sent him crashing into the first two. They stumbled and crashed into each other, and Peter tilted his head and look critically at the three until he found an opening to web their hands and feet together. “Now just sit tight, guys, NYPD will be here soon enough to haul you guys off to jail where you belong. Maybe they’ll put you in the stupid cell where you belong for acting so stupid.” Peter turned around and shot finger guns at the patrons, who were slowly stirring and chattering, pulling out their phones to take pictures of him.

“You guys are safe now, yeah? The police will be here in a minute, so don’t worry.”

“Peter, two miles north there’s a-” Peter heard the gunshot before Karen could finish her sentence.

“Ah, crap, listen, guys, I gotta go. Crime to fight, places to be, you know?” Peter slowly backed out of the building. Police cars pulled up in front of the bank, and Peter turned around.

“Spider-Man!” It was a member of the police that Peter had interacted with a lot before, and was pretty sure his name was Officer Davis or something like that. “Everything okay in there?” Thankfully, he was a member of the force that liked Spider-Man.

“Oh, yeah. No one’s hurt and the bad guys are all webbed up. They were trying to get into a bank vault, can you believe that?”

Officer Davis shook his head. “The day criminals stop being idiots is the day I lose my job.”

“Same. Speaking of criminals, can you direct some of your squad to-” Peter paused, listening for another shot. He heard it. “Two miles north of here? Don’t know where, I’m on my way over now. There’s gunfire.”

“A convenience store,” Karen supplied, which Peter repeated before swinging away. “Modern media makes my job a lot easier. Why do people insist on streaming everything?” she mused.

“I don’t know Karen, don’t you live stream everything I do to Mr. Stark?”

“No, I record it. There’s a difference.”

“How long until I can turn off this stupid protocol again?”

“I believe the answer from Tony last time was ‘when you stop being a little shit’.”

Peter groaned. “So, never, I guess. I’ll bug him about it again, tomorrow, if I remember.”

“Would you like me to set a reminder for you?”

“What are you, my phone?" Peter laughed. "No, I’ll remember.”

“Okay, Peter.”

Peter dropped on top of a roof overlooking a back alley, where two men were running out of the back of a convenience store, covered in blood. “Oh, jeez,” he muttered to himself. “Not cool.”

He flipped down, quickly snatching the guns from the men as he had at the previous crime. One of the men rushed at him, the silver point of the knife flashing in the afternoon sunlight. Peter flipped to the side, bouncing off the wall to bowl over the two men with a solid kick to their side. They fell over one another, sprawling and sputtering. Two police cars pulled up, sirens blaring. They ran over to the fell men and put them in handcuffs while Peter rushed inside. 

There was a man leaning against the counter, wheezing. The shelves in his store had been overturned, ransacked. Peter immediately rushed over to the older man. “Sir, are you okay?”

The silver-haired man smiled weakly. “They got me good, but I got them back.” The smile grew, crueler, more malicious. 

Peter wouldn’t have caught the movement of his arm if it wasn’t for the tingling on the hairs of his arms, and he dived to the side just as the trigger was pulled. It would have struck his chest, but as it was it only drove a groove into his outer left arm. Peter feel with a cry, biting his cheek to ground the pain before webbing the man up. “Hey, officers, wait, I think you've got the wrong guys!” he yelled, but the man had fallen backward from the force of the gun and by the time both Peter had gotten up and the officers had entered the convenience store the man was dead.

“Hey, Spider-Man, you okay?”

“Yeah, were you shot or something?”

Peter waved them off. “I’m fine, guys, really. Just a scratch."

"Peter," Karen's voice was cool and insistent in his ear. "This is an unusual type of crime. I'm filling this away for future reference." Peter made a noise of agreement

“You sure you're okay, man?” One of the police officers reached out with his hand, but Peter waved him off.

“Yeah, yeah.” Peter stood up, clutching the wound with his free hand. “This suit is red for a reason, fellas.” They didn’t look to comforted by that statement, but Peter left them there with a “Thanks!” and zipped off, favoring his right side for this trip. 

He got to his little base as fast as he could and quickly entered it, grabbing the med kit he hid behind that same wall panel. Peter stripped off his suit and sat on a chunk of concrete, pulling out a length of bandage. He doused the wound in rubbing alcohol. “Oh, jeez. Karen, is this bad enough to have to stitch?”

“It would be advised but it is not required. A bandage would suffice for someone with your healing factor.”

“Good.” Peter began to wind the bandage tightly around his upper arm, hissing at the sting. “‘Cause I’ve got class tomorrow and I’d like to make a good first impression.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos expand my google drive storage space !!
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it! Next chapter coming: May 17
> 
> talk to me on tumblr! the-end-of-endgame


	3. Chapter Two / Workspace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley starts a new job, looks at some blood, and can't open a door. All of these events are unrelated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up my funky fresh fellas I can't believe that this fic is over 1000 hits! and over 100 kudos! Thank you all so so much I appreciate each and every one of you wowza!!
> 
> Now time to find out what exactly Harley has been up to.

Harley flowed with the stream of people heading down Fifth Avenue, his head buried in his phone, trying his best to focus on where he was headed instead of the cute boy he had slammed the door on. Text directions kept coming in, and he weaved his way through crowded streets and sketchy back alleys until he came across a broken streetlight that flickered weakly despite the clear daylight outside. Harley physically shook his head, clearing his brain of thoughts of one Peter Parker, and pocketed his phone, knocking thrice on the garage door in quick succession. In a moment of quick thinking, Harley set his backpack on the ground, reaching in and pulling out a gray cloth that covered the lower half of his face. He pulled it over his head and around his neck just as the garage door rumbled and began to rise.

“Tch,” the tall woman in front of him scoffed. “This you? Titanium?”

“Y-yeah,” Harley said, willing his voice to stop shaking. “Who’re you?”

“Kir.” The woman said shortly. “You’re a lot younger than I thought you’d be. And take off that dumb mask, for Christ's sake.”

Harley shook his head, following him in. “I don’t want anyone to be able to find me outside of here.”

Kir huffed a laugh again. “Cute. Keep the mask on, kid, I don’t really give a shit.” She led Harley to the back of the building, which Harley saw now was less of a garage and more of a warehouse.

“You said that there would be other people here,” Harley said. “I want to get started. I want to take down Tony Stark as soon as I can.”

“Woah, there, kid.” Kir’s tight, dark curls rustled as she turned around and held up her hands. “We will, we will. You know I don’t work alone on this. They’re just all out right now.”

“Who? Where are they?” Harley took a seat across from Kir at a circular table that had multiple mismatched wooden chairs scattered haphazardly around it.

“Out. They’re on an assignment from… they’re out doing stuff.” Kir waved her hand dismissively. “None of your beeswax, that’s for sure.” She fixed Harley with a pointed gaze. “Yet.”

“So when do we get started?”

“Now.” Kir reached behind her and pulled open a metal filing cabinet, but Harley immediately saw that instead of paper files, it was stocked full of guns, all different kinds and sizes. Kir pulled a few out an lay them on the table. “You said you were a good mechanic.” 

“Yeah,” Harley agreed cautiously. 

“Prove it. We’re running… let’s say we’re running low on funds right now, and haven’t had a chance to get new guns. We want to upgrade these in a more technological fashion. Can you do that?”

“You got a workspace?”

Kir stood up and pointed to the side, where Harley could make out the shape of a workbench and several large tools. “We got lights back there. C’mon.”

Harley grinned, grabbing the sleek gray gun that he already was brimming with ideas for. “Tell me more about what you had in mind for these guns.”

Kir smirked. “With pleasure.” She flipped a switch, and the space lit up. She cleared various objects and projects from the table quickly, so fast that Harley hardly had time to get a good look at them.

“What was that?” he asked.

“Projects from our last mechanic, but he’s recently become… indisposed. You’re potentially our replacement.”

“Potentially?” Harley protested. “But I came here because you said you could help me take Tony Stark down.”

“And we will. You just have to prove your skills.”

Harley looked at her, frustrated. “I can’t do that until you tell me what you have in mind.”

“We’re looking for something with the power to disable Iron Man’s suit. Can you do that.”

Harley nodded. “I don’t know if I have the tech for that, though. The power needed to dismantle a suit like that, especially with all the modifications made in recent years since the Ultron incident, I don’t know if…”

“Right!” Kir snapped her fingers. “Power. You need power? Come with me.” Confused, Harley followed her across the workspace to a large, locked box.

“What’s this?”

Kir smirked. “Let’s just say that our group had some pull after the Battle of New York.” Harley’s eyes widened as the case clicked and hissed open, revealing a box full of glowing purple orbs. Noticing Harley’s wide-eyed expression, Kir laughed. “And there’s more, somewhere else. Is this enough power for you?”

Harley’s mouth was dry. “More than enough.”

“Get to work, then.” While Harley carefully extracted a few of the purple orbs and set them against the workbench, Kir pulled up a stool and sat across from him. “So, I’m curious,” she asked, and Harley could feel her dark brown eyes boring into him from where he stood, hunched over and tinkering with the orb. “What exactly do you have against Tony Stark? Not that I’m sure you don’t have a good reason, but you’re hardly more than a kid, I can tell that much. A smart kid, sure, but a kid. What’s the deal?”

“It’s personal,” Harley spat, with more venom than he anticipated. He shook his hand as he touched the purple orb with his hand, sending sparks flying and a shock shooting up his arm. 

“It’s personal for most of us, kid,” Kir said. 

“Yeah, so what about you? What’d Tony Stark do to you?”

Kir shook her head. “Personal business. Nothin’ I’d tell a kid, anyhow

“Of course it is,” Harley chuckled dryly.

A few hours later, Harley was startled from his focus by the loud sound of deep voices. Kir had gotten up a little while ago to wander around, and now she took off like a dart towards those voices, and they shushed quickly, but not before Harley could hear one of them yell, “Hey, who the hell is the weirdo sitting at Lowenthal’s desk?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he heard Kir say. “He’s that guy I’ve been talking to, the one who’s gonna help us with the Stark Operation. Titanium.”

“Titanium?” The unidentified voice’s laugh boomed, echoed around the garage. “What the hell kinda name is that?”

“A kid who’s trying to be smart, keep his name from creeps like you.”

Harley breathed a sigh of relief as the last wire connected, and the gun began to buzz softly under his hand. He snapped the metal plating back in place and grabbed his welding gun, flipping the metal mask over his place before welding the gun back together.

“Done.” He turned around. “You wanted to see what I can do?”

He had an audience now, maybe ten hulking figures all staring at him with equally imposing glares. Kir was somewhere in there, but he had lost sight of her.

Sweat dripped down his spine, a combination of exertion and nervousness. “Uh, alright, well. This isn’t perfect, I’ve only been working on it for a few hours, but with the combination of the Chitauri orb and these projectiles you’ve had lying around, they should act a lot like normal bullets. But-” he held up his hand at the dissatisfied rustling of the men, confidence flowing back into him. “But they don’t just cut into people, they’ll dismantle any tech they touch and-” he smirked. “Eventually, once I figure it out, it’ll leave no trace. It should melt to nothing, so not even Tony Stark can track this back to you. Us.”

“Show us,” one of the men demanded. 

“On what?” Harley asked.

“That lightbulb.” Another pointed.

Harley looked above him, raised the large gun, and exhaled.

And fired. 

The bullet pierced through the lightbulb, embedding itself in the socket. Slowly, like a creeping fog, darkness began to spread from one light to the next, until the entire section of the warehouse within the circuit was down. Harley heard the ting of a bullet casing hitting the stone floor, and he frowned. 

Someone whistled, long and low. “Shit. Get this working at higher power, and the boss might just want to talk to you after all- ow! Kir!”

Harley squinted, but couldn’t see well in the dark. “Who?”

A flashlight beam burned his eyes, and he shielded his vision with his hands. Kir stepped out from the group of men. “Congrats, kid. It seems like you passed.”

All energy and adrenaline Harley had been running on this complete this left him in an instant, and he slumped against the bench. Still, he kept his excitement managed. “Finally,” he said, his voice coming out snarky, cocky. “What’s next?”

Someone had used their own flashlight to make their way over to the circuit breaker, and eventually, the power flickered back on, save for the broken bulb.

Someone laughed, the same man as before. “This guy? Kir, he’s a squirt. Just a kid.”

Harley frowned, clenching his jaw. “You saw what I did to that lightbulb. Imagine how quickly it could pierce through a human.”

“But what about metal armor?” The large man jeered. “Tony Stark isn’t going to be waiting for us with his pants down.”

Harley shook his head, frustrated. “I didn’t say I was done with everything yet. Didn’t you hear me? There’s still improvements to make, ideas I have.” He fixed the green-eyed man with a steely stare. “I want to take this son of a bitch down, as quickly as possible. I want to dismantle everything within Stark Industries, and I want to destroy the life of the man who refused to help mine.” He spread out his arms at the tech surrounding him. “But, if you don’t want any more like this, or you still think, for some asinine reason, that I’m not serious enough, then I’ll take my things and leave.” He scoffed. “This can’t be the only group of people looking to take down Tony Stark.”

The man stared back at him, cold contempt in his eyes. Finally, he snorted, waving his hand. “Whatever. I don’t make the decisions here.”

“That’s right, you don’t.” Kir stood in front of the man, towering over him by quite a few inches. “Do I need to remind you who is in charge?” Harley couldn’t see her face, but she tilted her head and the man’s eyes grew wide with fear. He mumbled something short under his breath. “What was that?” Kir hissed, her tone icy.

“No, you don’t.” The man spoke clearly now.

“Good.” Kir turned around and smiled at Harley. “You can go now. We’ll text you when we need you next.”

“O-okay,” Harley said, confidence leaving him once again. “Should I-?”

“Yeah, yeah, leave that here. You can keep working on it when you come back.”

Come back. Those words fueled Harley with confidence, with excitement, and he smiled. “Lookin’ forward to it.”

By the time he exited the building, the streetlights were all on, brightening the streets of New York City. Harley pulled out his phone to get directions back to NYU, but the startled gasps of patrons around him caught his attention. “Look, it’s Spider-Man!”

Harley’s head jerked up involuntarily at the name. He turned where people were pointing and watched the red-and-blue covered superhero swing between buildings towards them. People were waving, taking pictures, and shouting excitedly. Spider-Man waved with one hand, but Harley watched him intensely, watched the tightness of his movements, the way his left arm jerked to the side a little with every swing. As he passed over, Harley, he craned his neck up to watch, and that was when a couple of droplets of blood hit the sidewalk in front of him.

People gasped and backed up. Harley looked up at the swinging man and yelled, “Hey. what the fuck?” But Spider-Man had already disappeared over a building and was gone. People were inspecting the blood, but in the late summer heat it was already drying a little, and there wasn’t that much to begin with, just enough to shock Harley. He stared at the stain for a few minutes more, long enough that the general population of New York had already moved on with their lives. 

He continued back to the college and up to his room. He stuck his key in the lock and fiddled with it, but the door swung open before he could.

“Hey.” Peter said, pulling the door open further to let Harley in. Harley collapsed on his bed, laying on his back, and Peter sat at his desk, spinning idly in his chair.

“How do you open the door before I even get my key in the lock?”

Peter shrugged, wincing ever so slightly. “I heard your keys,” he said. “I have really good hearing.”

“Well, why do you open the door for me, anyway?” Harley threw his backpack under his desk

Peter stammered for a bit, then coughed a little. “Well, it’s, uh, the door’s a little sticky, so it’s easier to open from the inside, I guess.”

“That’s bullshit,” Harley said.

Peter shrugged, spinning around again. “Okay.”

Harley bit his lip in frustration at Peter’s non-committal answer, and jumped up from his bed, moving towards the door. “I’m pretty damn strong, so we’ll see about that.” He stepped outside and shut the door, leaving it unlocked. He then turned the handle and pushed.

It didn’t budge.

“Are you sure you’re turning the door handle?” He could hear Peter call out from inside the room, muffled slightly by the wooden barrier between them. 

“Shut the fuck up, Parker,” Harley said vehemently, earning a few strange looks from fellow students passing by. He glared at them, and they kept moving. He pushed the door again, this time with both hands, and it budged a little. He kept pushing, but the door swung open with a force that sent Harley falling, nearly on his face if Peter hadn’t thrown out a hand across his front, stopping him. Peter’s hand was heavy and warm on his chest, and as he found his footing and stood, Harley’s brain was filled with a hundred more ideas of what Peter could do with those strong hands.

But he didn’t voice any of those thoughts, because instead his sharp tongue worked faster than his brain and he said. “I don’t need your help to open my own damn door.”

Peter’s face tightened, slightly. “Sorry.” He stepped back from the door and walked to sit on his bed. His right arm crossed his body and the hand wrapped around the upper forearm, and Peter’s face took on a strange pained expression. “Just trying to help.”

Harley was still thinking about his hands, so his mouth unhelpfully took over from him once again. “I can take care of myself.” He meant it to come out harshly, but the words left his mouth awkwardly and defensively. Peter smiled slightly, but Harley saw pity in his eyes and it infuriated him. He clenched his jaw and sat at his desk, picking up a book at random to read.

Silence fell over the room, thick and suffocating. Harley tried to focus on the book in his hand, but the words fuzzed out in front of his eyes as his brain refused to focus.

Peter’s voice broke the quiet, so suddenly that Harley nearly flinched. “I’m going to meet my aunt for dinner.” His voice was quiet, resigned. “It’s supposed to be a sort of, like, first day of college and celebration and all that so.” He pulled the door open. “See ya.” It shut.

Harley exhaled, loud and long, looking at the clock. It was eight at night. “Who the hell goes to dinner at eight?” 

He let a few minutes pass, but his brain was still fuzzy, unfocused, angry. “Stupid, stupid Parker, doing dumb shit with that fucking door and being all- ugh!” He shook his head, still clenching his teeth, and pulled out his pack of graph paper from his backpack. Designs and doodles he had offhandedly drawn while designing that gun. Something smaller, maybe, something to hide in a pen to shoot out and disable small electronics. There was a design for a disc shooter that Harley had to study for a minute to remember, but he was pretty sure it was supposed to stick to pieces of tech instead of piercing through it. Good for stuff they’d want to keep around and use, Harley thought, but the big stuff was for Tony and his dumb, multi-billion dollar suit that he tossed around like it was spare change.  
Harley’s hand tightened on the pencil, so hard he wondered if he might break it. His hand began moving, swift and fast, across the graph paper, sketching an image so fast that Harley barely knew what he was doing. The action calmed him, slowly released anger and tension from his shoulder as he sketched. However, when he drew his hand back, to his utter shock and surprise the image before him wasn’t a design for a machine or any type of blueprint.

The curly hair, the goofy, yet sincere smile. Harley was staring at the rough outline of Peter Parker.

“What the fuck. Nope,” he said definitively. “No way. That’s dumb as hell.” He said this out loud, even though no one was around. “This is the dumbest shit-” he ripped the page out of the pack, crumpling it up as small as it could go. “-Focus, dammit.” He picked up his pencil again, but only managed to sketch the bare outlines of a design before his brain emptied of everything except Peter Parker’s face, The way the curls in his hair fell across his forehead just so, the way his lower lip stick out ever so slightly in a pout. 

“Jesus Christ!” He yelled, earning a bang on the wall from the room next to him and a ‘Shut the fuck up!’

“It’s only the first day,” he muttered, quieter, to himself. “I need to go the fuck to sleep.”

He changed, turned off the desk light, and got into bed, despite the early time. His brain was a fuzzy, chaotic mess and he needed to sleep. Anything to get his stupidly infuriating, stupidly cute roommate off his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Next chapter on Monday, 5/20.  
> Comments and kudos make my day! Actually, like, my whole week. I love talking to you all so much you make me so happy :)  
> Yell about this fic on tumblr? the-end-of-endgame


	4. Chapter Three / Internship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter goes back to work and talks about his problems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaa I meant for this to come out a few hours ago but I had to leave for a banquet. Sorry! I hope y'all like this one because it's setting up Harley's chapter next ;)  
> Also just a reminder - this is not canon compliant past Civil War at all! It really isn't canon compliant past Iron Man 3 since Tony did not keep in touch with Harley. This is an AU <3

Peter strolled down the street toward the looming structure of the Avenger’s Tower. His spider suit was stuffed at the bottom of his backpack, covered by textbooks and papers and a laptop and probably some crumbs. He was coming straight from class and was already running a little late from the time he had told Mr. Stark he was going to be there.

It had been nearly a week since Peter started college, a week of classes, homework, and two quizzes and project already. A week since Harley Keener had entered his life and turning his brain into a pile of mush whenever he was near. Although, he didn’t get to see Harley as often as his heart wanted to. Peter was already busy enough between classes and patrolling - this was actually the first opportunity he’d had to visit the Avenger’s Tower since the semester started - that he wasn’t in the dorm as often as he would have liked. However, even when he found the time to study or just be in their shared space, Harley would often leave as soon as Peter settled in. Peter tried to write it off as coincidence, but the glares that Harley shot him and the silence that so often filled the room confirmed Peter unfortunate suspicions that Harley was avoiding him and didn’t want to talk to him.

Peter crossed the street, weaving between bodies and ducking under arms to hurry towards the tower. He finished the crosswalk and turned to head down the block when a black car slowed down next to him on the street. Peter tensed, but his spider-sense didn’t flare up. No doors opened, no one tried to kidnap him like people try to with Spider-Man. He, Peter Parker, was a nobody. He told himself this, and also rationalized the car as a tourist group who were looking at the buildings around him. This didn’t explain the blacked out windows, but the thought made Peter’s stomach loosen slightly, so he resumed a normal pace and continue walking, only one more block until the Tower. His eyes flicked to his left as the car continued to roll alongside him for a minute more, and through the hustle and bustle of the city, Peter could have sworn he heard the shutter of a camera clicking. He ground his teeth and picked up his pace ever so slightly. The car pulled off of the curb and drove away, and Peter watched it go. No license plate, so not a rental. He filed that information away in his head and entered the Tower, looking around out of the corner of his eye. He hurriedly pulled his badge out from underneath his jacket and flashed it at the sensor, which beeped and opened the elevator doors. 

“Good afternoon, Peter,” Friday’s voice said. “Tony is upstairs in the lab.”

Peter felt himself involuntarily bouncing on the balls of his feet as the elevator ascended. The doors dinged pleasantly and opened. “Thanks, Friday!” Peter said as he took off down the hall. He slid open the frosted glass doors and dropped his backpack on the ground. “Hey, Mr. Stark.”

“Hey, kid.” Tony was surrounded by holographic screens, his fingers moving a mile a minute as he flicked aside screens, drew together pieces, and typed out sentences of code. “How’s your first week of school going? You just started, ah, middle school, right?”

“Very funny, Mr. Stark.” Peter reached into his backpack and pulled out his suit, laying it out across the table. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small device, hardly bigger than his hand. He stretched the arm of the suit so that the tear in the left arm was visible, and pushed the button on top, which sent a thin layer of nanotech at the break. Within seconds, the suit had been pulled together, stitched, and repaired. Peter then lay the suit back out and yanked the spider-drone on the center out. Immediately it began to fizzle and twitch like it had been doing the past few days. 

“No, but seriously. How’s NYU? How’re classes?”

“Good,” Peter said. “We’re not doing too much yet, but we’re supposed to start out semester project for Robotics soon, so I’ll be busy with that. Building a functioning robot able to do some tasks from a list the professor gave us.”

“Well, that’ll be a walk in the park for you, then.” Tony swiped his hand, and the screen closed down. “Catch, kid.” 

Something small flew in the air and Peter lifted one hand to catch it without looking up from the internal wiring of the reconnaissance drone. He brought it back in front of his vision and looked questioningly at Tony.

“I finally finished fixing the Iron Spider suit. That thing took a hell of a beating kid, what were you using it for?”

Peter flipped it over in his hand. It was no bigger than a golf ball but flattened on both sides. A familiar spider insignia glinted up at him. “Kraven the Hunter. His son, actually. Fought him a few days before school started.”

“Dead?”

“No.” Peter laughed uncomfortably. “No, no, I couldn’t… he’s in jail. The, uh, the Raft.”

“Good,” Tony said simply. “Nice job. Clearly, I have not been keeping up on your activities as well as I should be. Were you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I was fine. The suit took most of the damage, to be honest. That thing is so helpful. It’s all in here now?”

“Yep. Just smack it on your chest - spider sign out, otherwise, it’ll look very strange - and it’ll be back.” Tony began to tinker with something next to him mindlessly, hands moving over a mess of bolts and wiring. “I know you like wearing your red and blue suit, I know that’s your thing or whatever, but just keep this with you. For emergencies.”

“For emergencies.” Peter smiled.

“And hey, if anyone asks, tell them it’s a very expensive piece of chocolate.”

“I don’t think anyone is gonna believe that.”

“You know, I don’t think so either. How’s college, aside from easy classes?”

“Well, I think my roommate hates me.” Peter set down the screwdriver that had been poking around his drone a little more intensely than he had meant to.

“Roommate? I didn’t think you were supposed to have a roommate. What’s his name?”

“I found out just after we finished unpacking my stuff. Apparently, the other kid’s roommate was Kraven the Hunter. And I’m not telling you his name, you’ll just search him up and try and find dirt on him.”

“Ah, true. There are other ways I can find out, though.”

Peter looked at him. “Please don’t. He already doesn’t like you very much, he’d only hate you more if he knew you were creeping on him.”

Tony protested, but when Peter held firm, he backed down. “Fine, fine. I promise I won’t. Still, good thing you took care of that Kraken-Kraven-whatever thing when you did. Probably saved that kid a lot of grief.”

Peter huffed. “Yeah. I dunno, though. It’s weird, having a roommate.”

“Ah, but that’s the true college experience. You know, MIT is where I met Rhodey. We were roommates.”

“Oh my god, they were roommates,” Peter said reflexively. “Besides, you didn’t have spider powers to deal with in MIT,” Peter pointed out. “Your roommate also didn’t hate your guts.”

“Touche. How do you know he doesn’t like you?”

“Well, he doesn’t really talk to me. Like, ever.” The Spider-Drone’s legs finally stopped twitching in an erratic fashion. “Any time we’re in the same room together longer than ten minutes, he makes an excuse and leaves. He has work all the time and gets back to the dorm later than I do, and sometimes he leaves before I wake up.” Peter threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t even understand how he has such a work schedule, he’s not even from New York, he’s from Tennessee.”

“Maybe he had something set up before he got here. And, Pete, you know you always have a room here - not only for emergencies, if you want it. If the roommate gets to be too much, or he starts getting suspicious.”

Peter pouted. “I know. But I also know it’s probably even more suspicious if Tony Stark’s personal intern was staying at the Avengers Tower.”

“Not so weird if you,” Tony pointed at him from across the room. “Decide to go public.”

Peter blew a long breath from his lungs. “Mr. Stark-”

“Tony, kid, seriously, you’re eighteen now.”

“-we talked about this, and the government knows, so what does it matter if the public knows? I want to finish college first.”

“Yeah, with the number of degrees I know you’re planning on getting, that’ll take how many years?”

Peter grimaced. Truth be told, he didn’t really want to reveal his identity to anyone outside of who already knew, but the Civil War and Sokovia Accords had made that a little tricky. He had made a deal with the government to reveal himself to them in return for anonymity until he graduated, but Mr. Stark was right. That was years away, too many for him to really think about. “Can we talk about this at the end of this year, maybe? I don’t really want to think about it right now.”

Tony was looking at him with a concerned expression but moved on. “But the roommate? You’ll be okay with that?”

Peter shrugged, and when he tried refusing the wiring this time, a cloud of smoke plumed from the spider’s belly. He groaned under his breath, knowing he was unfocused. “Yeah, eventually. It’s only been a week, so maybe it’ll just take some time. I think he bugs me because he doesn’t like you.”

Tony laughed, loud and booming. “Lots of people don’t like me, kid. Just something you gotta get used to.”

“I guess, yeah. Other than that, he seemed pretty friendly, though. And he’s pretty cute-” Peter couldn’t stop the blush that was creeping across his cheeks, so he buried his head in fixing the drone for a few moments.

“I’m sorry, did you just describe your roommate as  _ cute? _ ” Tony said incredulously. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use  _ that  _ word to describe someone you like. He must be pretty smokin’ hot for you to call him that.” Peter lifted his head up just the tiniest bit and saw Mr. Stark wiggling his eyebrows. 

“He’s- not- oh my God, you and Ned are too similar when you do that.”

“Who?” 

“Ned? My friend? You helped him get into MIT this year?”

“Oh, right, right. I thought his name was Ted?”

“No, Mr. Stark. It’s Ned. Ned Leeds.”

“Ah!” Tony snapped his fingers. “Right, the, uh, big Asian fella, right?”

Peter sighed, shaking his head with a smile. “Sure, Mr. Stark. Whatever helps you remember.”

The spider flipped over and began to skitter around. Satisfied, Peter deactivated the bot and pressed it back into the center of his suit. 

“I get why, you know. About wanting to stay at college. You’re only young once, after all. Just be careful, Pete. You don’t want to get into something you can’t handle.”

Peter nodded. “I am careful, Mr. Stark.”

Tony frowned then as if he was struck suddenly with a thought. “How are you even doing your Spider-Man thing, anyway? I know you didn’t go to MIT to avoid raising suspicion, but isn’t it going to be pretty obvious when Spider-Man starts swinging out from the windows of NYU?”

“I’ve got a place where I keep my stuff,” Peter said. “I don’t keep my suit at school. Except for this one now, I guess.” He flipped the Iron Spider suit over in his palm. “The other one is too difficult to hide, especially from a roommate.”

“But you’re doing okay, though? You’re safe?”

Peter smiled. “Yeah, Mr. Stark. I’m doing fine.”

“Good. Glad to hear that. How’s May?”

“We went out for Thai last week. She’s fine. Misses me, but I visit her when I can.”

“And she… she knows, right?”

“That I’m Spider-Man?” Peter laughed. “Yeah, she found out when I was still in high school.”

“If you couldn’t keep your identity secret from your aunt, how are you going to keep it from the guy who lives with you? For a guy who wants to keep his identity secret, you’re pretty bad at it.”

“Hey, hey.” Peter pointed a finger at Tony, frowning slightly. “I’m a lot better now. I keep my suit in a secret location, somewhere you don’t even know about.”

“What, the building on 15th and 5th?” Peter jerked back in surprise, but Tony only shook his head. “I’ve known for a while now. I own that building, kid, you think I don’t check up on it?”

Peter’s forehead crinkled. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Tony shrugged. “I was curious what you were doing with it. I’ll drop off some stuff there, though, more medical supplies and an extra suit. That place is yours if you want to turn it into an official Spider-Man hangout zone, or base or whatever.”

Peter smiled again. “Thank you, Mr. Stark. I still don’t know what I want to do there, though. Maybe in a few years. I’ll figure it out.”

“Whatever you want, kid.”

They continued working in silence for a time, Peter worked on his organic chemistry assignments while Tony tinkered with his projects until Friday cut through their peaceful focus.

“Tony, there’s been a break-in.”

Peter’s head snapped up from his worksheet, while Tony looked thoroughly unconcerned. “What, here?”

“No, sir. It’s at one of your north warehouses.”

“What happened to the security measures?”

“It seems that they have been disabled.”

“Disabled?” Now Tony was incredulous. “How the hell did they disable that, no one’s even been able to disable that. Friday, can you bring up visual on the warehouse?”

“No, sir. They’ve disabled the cameras as well.”

“Is there anything important in those warehouses?” Peter asked.

Tony sighed. “Not to me, but they really belong to other people. Tech I was commissioned or that I designed that hasn’t been shipped out yet. And there’s some,” his jaw clenched. “Some old weapons in there, from before Iron Man. The tech is outdated by a mile now, but it’s still dangerous to people who could disable my security. Friday, could you send out the, uh, some of the suits?”

“I’ll go!” Peter said eagerly, grabbing his suit. “If those guys are really disabling your technology, it sounds like they’ll just take down those suits if you aren’t in them.”

“Yeah, well, it sounds like they’ll take out your suit, too, kid.”

“I’m more than my suit. I’ve still got my own powers and my own web-shooters. I’ll just sneak around and do some surveillance. I just fixed Droney-”

“Droney?”

“-so you can see what I’m seeing. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and I’ll get there faster than you can call your old suits out.” Peter had already run to the back closet of the lab and changed, exiting in his suit and talking all the while.

“Don’t take on more than you can handle.”

Peter shrugged, waiting for the lenses to finish recalibrating. “I took down a psycho murderer last week, Mr. Stark. This’ll be cake.” He instructed Friday to open the big bay window, and leaped out, a smile on his face underneath the red fabric. 

The wind rushing through his ears as he plummeted toward the ground. He snapped a web up and pulled himself up, flinging into the open air.

He swung across the city as quickly as he could, adrenaline and excitement fueling his movements.

“Hey, kid, I’m gonna stay on comms with you so I can make sure I see what you’re doing, okay? This is also just in case your suit does get taken out, the comm is an extra measure.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Stark!” Peter dropped on top of a building a block away from the warehouse. “This is it here, right? Stark Warehouse N-2?”

“Yeah. See anything around?”

“Karen, scan the warehouse.”

A yellow outline spread across his vision, highlighting the warehouse and the-

“There are twenty-three heat signatures throughout the building.”

Tony whistled lowly. “Maybe I should-”

“Mr. Stark, please, I’m going to kick you off this comm if you don’t stop worrying. I’ve got this, I really do.”

“Alright.” Peter could hear Tony exhale slowly. “ I trust you.”

Peter pressed the center of his chest, and the Spider-Drone popped out. Peter saw himself in the drone’s lens in the upper left corner of his vision. “Alright, Droney, go and do some of that cool spy stuff you do in the warehouse.”

“It’s called reconnaissance, kid. And Droney? Really?”

Peter shrugged, even though he knew Mr. Stark couldn’t see. “He likes the name.” He watched Droney’s feed fly around the building before coming to rest on a back entrance that had been broken into. The security system - everything from the keypad to the lock - had been clearly tampered with, sparks flying from the machinery.

“Alright, now, just fly in there, don’t turn your lights on.”

The drone flew in through the door, and stayed as close to the ceiling as possible. Through the camera, Peter could see several people - twenty-three exactly - pulling items out of boxes, putting certain items to the side, and holding things up to the light to examine them.

And that was all he saw before something flew at the drone, a small projectile that embedded itself in the camera, and there was a flash of static before it went dead.

Peter cursed. “And I just fixed it. Damn.” He sighed, tensing his body before leaping into the air, aiming a web at the roof of the warehouse. “Guess it’s my turn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all liked it!! Please let me know how you're feeling about all this because comments and kudos fuel my writing <3 I love and appreciate you all so so much!
> 
> talk to me on tumblr about this I love talking to you all! -> the-end-of-endgame
> 
> See you Friday!!


	5. Chapter Four / Breaking In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley commits a crime :( and gets arrested :((

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhHH thank you for 2000 hits!! and 200 kudos holy crap! I love you all!!!
> 
> Also side note- it's very very hard to write Spider-Man in someone else's point of view. Very strange

Harley wasn’t sure how long he had been working. He knew he had entered the garage sometime this morning, mask pulled up over his face. He got right to work, tinkering first with some of the weapons that had been broken over the past few days he hadn’t been able to make it. It seemed like the people he worked for like these tools, even if they were a little too enthusiastic about using them. And breaking them. Thankfully, it only took a few minutes for Harley to fix the mechanics of it and insert a new Chitauri orb into the container that existed within every weapon. After that, he was able to start on his own projects, which meant improving the designs and innovating the projectiles. 

The biggest issue for him right now was the bullets that stayed around. He knew he could eventually get the shells to dissipate, but it was a fine line between causing the bullets to disintegrate and causing the gun to combust, so he had to be careful. Already it had resulted in several burned fingers and forearms that Harley carefully bandaged and then hid from his roommate. However, today, maybe-

Harley jerked his fingers back as the bullet imploded. It was only a small explosion, but Harley still felt heat sting his fingers. Now there were bullet casings on the desk, but more of it had dissipated into dust than before.

“No luck?” Kir slid into a seat beside him, peering over at his work. Her thick curly hair was pulled back in two pigtails on either side of her head.

“No, a little,” Harley said. “Good enough that I can replace the previous set of bullets until I fix it for good.”

“And how are the disks coming?”

Harley perked up. “Good!” That was something that had been quite easy, actually. Building a gun that shot out a disk-like projectile instead of a piercing bullet. This would allow them to dismantle tech instead of destroying it with bullets. “They won’t disappear, but they’re pretty much done. I think there are maybe five around here?”

“Good, we’ll need them for today.”

“Today? What’re you doing today?”

Kir waved a hand flippantly. “In a few minutes, we’re going to infiltrate one of Tony Stark’s storage units. Intel tells us he’s got some tech in there that’ll be useful to destroy him.” Her hand clenched around a tool like it always did when his name was mentioned, and Harley forced himself to breathe slow until the fire in his chest cooled.

“Good,” he said firmly. “Hopefully you get some good stuff in there.”

“Well, that’s why you’re coming with us.”

Harley looked at Kir out of the corner of his eye, hoping his gaze didn’t betray the panic that was springing up inside him. “Me? What could you possibly need me for?”

“Well, Ti, Stark is bound to have some tech you can use. Better than the junk we find lying around.”

“I don’t want anything of his,” Harley said automatically.

“Yeah, but think about it. Tony Stark, destroyed by his own stuff. That’s some irony there if I’ve ever seen it.”

Harley hummed, considering. Then, “I’m going to tell him. When we actually go after him, I want him to know.”

They didn’t talk about it often, their personal vendettas against Tony. Kir was quiet for a moment, then said, “I’m not. I want him to wonder, forever.” She looked over at him. “But you’ve got your own reasons.”

Harley clenched his fist. “He’s the one who made me the way I am. It’s his fault I’m like this.”

“Aw, don’t sound some glum!” Kir elbowed him in the side playfully. “I like the way you are just fine.”

Harley managed to smile back, but his stomach curdled. He thought, briefly, of the last time he actually saw Tony. Before the bullies, before the orphanage, before his mom. He remembered 

The garage door opened, filling the space with bright sunlight and bringing in a crisp breeze. “Kir, you ready to go? The other guys are gonna meet us up before we get there.”

“Nearly!” Kir called. She turned to Harley. “Ready?”

Harley jerked his head to the side. “I’m not too sure I want to go.”

“Harley, you have to come with us.” Harley looked at Kir out of the corner of his eye. Her voice had shifted suddenly, cold and aggressive. Her bubbly smile stuck in place though, and she continued in a lighter tone. “You gotta tell us which weapons are the best to take!” 

“True enough,” Harley said. As much as he didn’t want to touch a piece of Stark tech, Kir was right. There was some sort of thrill in knowing that he could send him a message that already had his name written on it. “Alright, let’s go then. No promises on liking any of what we find, through.”

They piled into a large van, and Harley lost track of where they moved throughout the unfamiliar city. He pulled his hood over his head, hiding his mop of blond hair underneath dark fabric. The van stopped, and everyone inside emptied out, Harley following behind Kir. He blinked against the bright sunlight for a moment, shielding his eyes with his hand as they stepped closer toward the warehouse. The words “Stark Warehouse N-2” were emblazoned on the outside, next to a few other metal barns of similar wording. 

As they approached the large bay door, one of the men that Harley knew worked better with precision weapons shot several purple streaks from the rifle at his side. The bullets were embedded in the cameras around the building faster than Harley could blink. The man hissed, shaking out his hand. Smoke was rising from the gun, and Harley could see that the glove that covered his hand was steaming as well. “Work on the cooldown, Ti.”

“Got it,” Harley murmured, watching Kir fiddle with the security pad before finally managing to force the doors to open. Alarms sounded, briefly, before a flash of purple lightning silenced them. Lights flickered on slowly, spreading across the ceiling of the warehouse. Illuminated before them was more weapons than Harley had ever seen. Guns, missile launchers, bullets, there was even something that looked vaguely like a jet covered with a sheet in the back. There was other tech, too, stuff that Harley didn’t recognize, specialized stuff he had no idea what to do with. The people around him spread throughout the warehouse, poking at tools and items and technology, calling out to one another, grabbing guns, shoving aside useless items. 

Harley walked over to a dusty workbench, and pulled off the sheet covering the top. Underneath lay a strikingly familiar face- a mask made of red and gold metal boring into him. Harley stumbled back, stomach turning over in a turmoil. He stared at it for a second before his eyes switched to the item next to it. It was a toolbox, one that might look inconspicuous to anyone else, but Harley opened up the box and stared at familiar tools. Not his, they were weary for use and coated in dust and grime, but there it was. The same toolbox - the same type, at least - that Tony had give him after he showed up, when he simultaneously saved and ruined Harley’s life for good. Harley’s throat constricted with an unexplainable emotion, and he closed the toolbox. He stepped back, then reached forward to grab the handle.

“See anything good?”

Harley looked up to his left, at Kir, but the pleasant expression on her face melted as her eyes trailed to the workbench. The smiled dripped off her face and twisted, congealing into a cruel scowl. Before Harley could say anything, lead her away, Kir had snatched the dusty mask from the bench and pulled out her gun, a bigger, more explosive type than the precision rifles other carried or even the non-lethal versions. No, Kir pointed this at the mask and fired without warning, sending a blast that sent both Kir and Harley stumbling backward. Harley slammed against something tall and metal, and wrapped his hands around Kir’s arm to stop her from falling. The mask in front of them exploded in a purple inferno, sending shrapnel bouncing up at them. Harley cried out as bits of metal flew toward his face, and he turned his head to shield his eyes. He watched Kir as he turned, watched her stand, unmoving as a slice of metal slamming into her face, cutting her at the cheek. The cold fury in her eyes was so intense that Harley couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes as she turned toward him. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Just a little… tired. What’s in the box? Anything good?”

“Just tools,” Harley said.

“What, specialized ones? Do you need them?”

Harley didn’t, he knew he didn’t need them. In fact, he kind of hated these tools, these reminders of a time not so long ago. “I do.” 

Another lie, another bluff was prepared on his tongue, but all Kir said was “Okay. See anything else?”

Harley nodded and pointed to some of the guns. “They’re outdated, but the thick material might help us out with containing the Chitauri cores.”

Another flash of purple caught his eyes, and both he and Kir spun around to watch a small black object fall out of the sky where it hovered in the doorway. “What the hell was that?” Kir called.

“Some sorta drone!” someone yelled. “Probably something of Stark’s.”

A man had run over to it, and Harley could only just see what he was holding from where he stood across the warehouse. “This doesn’t look like anything of Stark’s… It looks like a twitching spider.”

That was the last thing he said before he was jerked upward by a force Harley couldn’t see. It was only when the man spun around again and again in the air did Harley see a white substance covering him in lines - a web.

“Oh, shit!” another man yelled, and Harley heard the noise of the bigger gun charging. He still didn’t see any intruder around, but soon another man had been pinned to the ground with a thick white mass. Harley grabbed his gun from behind his back, but his hands were shaking. A purple flash lit the ceiling, and Harley saw the outline of a man pressed against the rafters of the ceiling. More beams of light joined the space, and the figure danced gracefully away from each beam like he knew they were coming until the ceiling met the wall. Then the red-and-blue vigilante that Harley had seen bleeding in the sky a week ago swung through the air, catching a man squarely in the chest and sending him flying before pinning him to the wall with another burst of web. He said something, words Harley barely heard over the pounding of his own heart. He didn’t move, and Spider-Man didn’t see him.

Harley pointed his gun up at Spider-Man’s quick-moving form, but he watched another man try the same. The large gun was taking too long to charge, and by the time the projectile was fired the gun had already been snatched out of the man’s hands and he was already knocked down by another web. Harley frowned at this, making another mental note. He snuck around a few large metal structures to a man that had already been webbed. He grabbed his rifle from him and crept into a small vantage point. He wasn’t the best shot with a smaller weapon, so when he shot the first time, he missed Spider-Man by a mile. He flinched at the mistake, expecting any second now for an unseen string to whip him out from his hiding place, but nothing came. Exchanging a look with Kir a few feet away, he motioned with the gun. Kir nodded, and hefted her larger gun. 

Harley yelled as she fired, the large blast catching Spider-Man’s attention from the people around them. She was webbed down as well, and Harley began shooting with reckless abandon at the masked man. The lense of the mask turned their focus toward him, and Harley clenched his teeth, firing one more time. A lucky shot caught Spider-Man in the right shoulder, jerking him backward. He watched the man press what he assumed were the things he had been webbing everyone else up with, but nothing happened. A few men had been able to rip from some of the weaker bondings, making their way toward the man.

“This is why I prefer good old-fashioned guns, people,” the masked man groaned, rolling his shoulder. “I just got this suit fixed today, c’mon.” Harley watched a thin stream of blood begin to pour down his arm and felt a little sick at the sight. Spider-Man lifted his left hand, but no web fluid streamed out of that hand, either. He reached back behind him, and Harley saw the glint of something being lifted from his back before there was a slight hiss, a click, and Harley found himself webbed to a wall, the rifle snatched from his hand. The lenses twitched, narrowing and widening at a rapid pace as the last few men around them were taken down and pinned to the ground. 

“How’d you make it?” Harley tensed, but Spider-Man seemed to be talking to no one in particular. “Tech that is able to disarm so much with such a small bullet. And I know what you did to those cameras out there. They’re fried, but I can’t see anything that you did to them. What’s up with that? And also, why is it all purple? Is that just a bad-guy thing, or what?”

Harley looked over at Kir, but she shook her head slightly from where she lay on the ground, and she pressed her lips into a firm line. So he stayed silent as well, just staring, watching Spider-Man examine the guns they had brought. He webbed a few into a pile just as a group of people in dark blue uniforms stepped through the large bay doors.

“NYPD. We heard there was a break-in here, everything okay?”

“Everything’s all good in here. Did Mr.- ah, Iron Man call you guys?” Harley bit back a panicked noise, grunting as he bit his cheek instead.

“Yes, we’re supposed to arrest these criminals and take them to the station”

“Good to hear! Well, I’d love to stay and help, but your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man’s got other things to do.” Harley noted the way he covered his injured arm with his hand, placing pressure on the bleeding point. “You got it covered?”

“We’re good, Spider-Man.”

“Thanks, fellas! See you around!” The masked superhero gave a quick salute, which looked strange with his twitching eyes. He jumped into the air, pulling himself up with a thin string. The pile of weapons wrapped in webbing trailed behind him, and soon Spider-Man disappeared in the afternoon sun.

Harley stared at the uniformed group and couldn’t help but tremble. Handcuffs dangled from their waistband, and Harley could see the outline of a pistol in its holster. One of the uniformed women walked over to Kir and began cutting her free from the webbing on the floor. When she stood up webbing still covered her entire front, and when Kir tried to pull it off it stuck to her hand. Harley struggled, trying in vain to get to Kir or at least escape before he was arrested, but to his surprise no handcuffs were pulled out. Another officer walked over and cut Harley free, and the others were getting the same done to them all around.

“You’re new here, so listen up. We have less than five minutes before Stark Industries shows up with a team to fix the damage done at the warehouse. You have one minute to grab whatever you came here for before we shove you in that van. Don’t say a word.” The man walked away, leaving Harley more confused than before. He reached down and clutched the toolbox he had taken from the workbench as Kir locked eyes with him. Looking from side to side, he saw everyone around him quick grab something, anything, as much as they could carry, before quickly. All their stuff was thrown in one van while the rest of them huddled into a van. As soon as the door shut on them, Harley turned to Kir. “What’s going on?” he mumbled. “Are we being arrested or what?”

Kir shook her head, though it was hard to see in the dark and crowded van. “No, we’re fine. As long as you keep doing what you’re supposed to around here, you won’t get arrested.”

“Boss has got us covered,” another man said.

“The boss?” Harley asked. “Who do you work for?”

Kir scoffed. “You work for him too, Titanium. Don’t forget it.”

“But who is he?” Harley asked. “I thought it was just you at first.”

“Yeah, like I could pull all this off by myself.” Kir laughed. “No, you’ll meet him when he wants you to meet him. Don’t go anywhere in the meantime, though,” she said playfully.

Harley frowned. “What happens if I do?”

Kir shook her head, a plastic smile stuck on her face. “It’s not a good idea, Ti. Boss likes his guys where he can see ‘em.”

Harley had nothing else to say to that, so fell silent and let his thoughts swirl around him. Soon enough the van stopped, and Harley stepped out into a cloudier afternoon.

“C’mon, we’ve got a little ways to walk. The rest of our stuff will be back at the garage.” Kit began leading the group down the street. Slowly everyone split up into smaller groups, separating on street corners and into various shops like they had this all planned. Harley stuck close to Kir, and she didn’t say anything about it. It took a long while for them to make their way back to the familiar building.

“You can leave now, Ti, this operation was mostly a bust. We’ll call you when we need you next. Rest for a few days.”

Harley nodded, and turned to leave. He was struck with a thought. “Wait!” he said, and Kir turned around. “The Boss… guy. The one I’m working for, I guess.” Kir nodded, staring at him. “What’s his name?”

Kir shook his head. “Sorry, Ti. Not information you need to know quite yet.”

“Nothing?” Harley pleaded.

Kir regarded him critically, thinking for a moment. “You’re going to have some projects coming down the line. Less weapon design, more… armor design.”

Harley thought of the designs he kept crumpled at the bottom of his backpack, a child’s fantasy of flying next to Tony Stark. “Like Iron Man?”

Kir snarled. “No. Something different. Something stronger. Something better.”

“Do I get to start working on it now?”

Kir blew frustrated air out of her lungs. “Go home, Ti. You’re getting on my nerves.”

Harley ground his teeth, but said, “fine.”

Kir turned and walked back to the building. Harley watched her leave, watched her swear vehemently and spit on the ground. He felt guilty, somehow. He turned and took off his mask, allowing himself to breath in something other than hot, stale air.

The walk home was too long, and full of far too many questions that Harley didn’t know how to answer. When he got to the dorm room, he somehow fully expected Peter to be at the door, like he had been nearly every day this week despite Harley’s weak protests. But he forced the door open on his own, and the room was cold and silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed it! Not super happy with it tbh, I wish I had Harley talk more but let's be real Peter would probably have recognized his voice so I just,,,, avoided that. Next chapter will be a little more Peter and Harley interaction and the chapter after tHAt is my favorite chapter :)  
> Anyways, kudos? comments? I love talking to you guys all the time it makes my freaking day !!!!  
> talk to me on tumblr also? @the-end-of-endgame  
> Next chapter out on Monday 5/27 !!


	6. Chapter Five / Roommates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's recovering from getting shot in the last chapter. Harley is trying to be a better roommate. It's working out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally getting back to some damn interaction between these two, thank god.  
> Thank you all so much for reading! I'm so so happy that people are enjoying this story  
> Now, onto the chapter...

“Where were you?” Harley spoke the moment Peter forced the dorm room door open, a day after the warehouse incident. He had ended up staying at the Tower the night after Mr. Stark found out he had gotten shot. Peter tried to insist that he was fine, but the wound was deep and had torn some muscle, so Peter relented since he knew he didn’t have any classes the next day.

“My aunt’s stove wasn’t working, so I ended up doing my best to fix it. Ended up staying over.” Peter repeated the lie he had practiced on his cab ride over here since Mr. Stark had forbid him from swinging while his shoulder healed.

Harley crossed his arms from where he stood leaning against the wall next to his desk. “Dude, I was worried all night. I had no clue where you were!” He sighed, his hair moving slightly with the heavy exhale. “Just, could you text next time? Or something?”

Peter blinked “I don’t have your number.”

Harley rolled his eyes and tore a small piece of paper off a paper on his desk. He scribbled on it and handed it to Peter. “Here. Now you don’t have any excuse.”

Peter automatically reached out with his right hand and involuntarily gasped as he took the paper. Pain engulfed his shoulder, and he grasped his arm with his other hand.

Harley looked at him strangely. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Peter clenched his jaw and let his arm hang loosely at his side as the pain slowly receded. “I, uh, hurt my shoulder when I was… fixing the stove.” There actually was a massive hole in his shoulder, but the pain felt the same.

Harley stepped forward and touched Peter’s collar, and for a moment Peter lost the ability to breathe as the taller boy stood before him, fingers brushing his neck under his shirt and jacket. Then Harley lifted the jacket slightly, sliding it down Peter’s shoulders and off his arms. “Do you have pain meds?” he asked gruffly, turning away from Peter and hanging up his jacket in the small closet next to Peter’s bed. Peter didn’t know how Harley knew where he hung up his clothes, and he felt like the air had been knocked out of him.

He also didn’t know how to tell Harley that normal ibuprofen didn’t work on him. “Uh, yes,” he said, but Harley turned back to him with a critical eye.

“Clearly not if you’re acting like that,” Harley’s voice was low and the accent came out stronger in his words. Peter was breathing again, but his heart stuttered as he spoke. Harley dug around in his backpack until he pulled out a small white bottle. He shook out two pills and presented them to Peter.

Peter knew that they would pass through his system nearly instantly, but took them nonetheless. “Thanks,” he said as he swallowed them. Neither of the boys moved, so Peter kept looking at Harley and noticed for the first time the dark bags under his eyes.

They held eye contact with each other for only a few seconds more before Harley turned away, eyes flicking nervously to Peter and all around him. “Make sure you put my number in your phone just in case something, y’know, happens.”

Peter smiled softly. “Will do.”

Peter had been banned from going out as Spider-Man for a few days as his suit wasn’t fixed yet and, as Mr. Stark so nicely put it, “if I see you swinging around outside before your shoulder is healed I will personally fly out in my suit and drag your ass back to the Tower, are we clear?” He still had the Iron Spider suit, but that was clearly a no-go as well.

So he was stuck. No work until Tony fixed his suit and tinkered with those strange guns for a bit, and he only had a couple of classes this week. All he had to do until the weekend was lay around and think.

Think about Harley, in particular. He still came and went from the room at odd times, which was strange in itself, but he was being nicer to Peter, albeit in his rough, sarcastic way that Peter had come to expect. Being stuck in his room for a few days was giving Peter time to focus on his schoolwork, but sometimes he would get so engrossed in it that he lost track of time, and it was a hand on his left shoulder that took him out of it. “Wanna grab a bite with me?” Harley would ask, and Peter’s grumbling stomach would gratefully follow him down to the school cafeteria where they would grab some shitty pizza or a milkshake. Conversation flowed awkwardly between them at first, before they both started to open up a little more. Peter told him about his aunt and the things he wanted to do once he graduated college (ignoring anything Spider-Man related). In return, Harley told him about his plans once he graduated, the garage he worked at for a while fixing cars and the strange people he had seen in Tennessee.

In return, Peter began to look out for Harley. When Harley’s eyes began to droop shut at his desk but he refused to stop working, Peter would be the one to gently nudge him out of his chair and into his bed. Harley protested, but never tried to stop him as he rolled into bed and fell asleep within seconds. Peter never tried to linger too long, but there was something peaceful about Harley’s face as he slept, the way his face relaxed and the creases smoothed out. His hair fell lightly across his face, disturbed only by the slight movements he made as he slept. Peter got used to sleeping in the same room as Harley, got used to his soft snores that echoed around the room.

A few days of that routine later until it was Friday, when both Peter and Harley attended the same Calc II class and Peter left for another lecture after that. It was an afternoon class, but neither Peter nor Harley had left the dorm at all in the morning except for food. Peter went to get his backpack, which was full of his laptop, papers, books, and various pencils, but it was grabbed from him before his hand could grab the strap.

Harley had a messenger bag slung over one shoulder, and in his hand, he held the strap of Peter’s dark red backpack, which he slung over his other shoulder. Peter made a move to grab for it, but Harley moved out of reach. “I’m fine,” Peter said, and it was true, the pain in his shoulder had healed quickly and was now no more than a dull ache. He had taken the bandage off last night and looked at the fresh pink scar, tender and new.

Harley snorted. “Like hell you are. No one heals from a strained shoulder in only a few days. Stop being tough about it, darlin’, and let’s get going.” 

The nickname fell from his mouth so smoothly, so easily that it took a moment for both boys to process what was said. Peter’s chest restricted, and he caught sight of Harley’s reddening cheeks before he turned away from him. He wanted to say something, a joke, a dismissal, something to dissipate the heavy air that had settled between them, but the words were stuck in his throat and he choked on them.

It took a minute, a little less than that, maybe, until Harley pushed back his hair and shot Peter a smile that only held a hint of nervousness underneath it, so brief that Peter wondered if he imagined it. “We’re gonna be late, Parker. C’mon.” He swept out the door with both bags on his back, leaving Peter to follow behind him.

Their calculus class was small, only about half as many students as there were desks. Peter took his normal seat near the front of the class on the left side, and Harley set his backpack next to his seat. Then, instead of Harley continuing up to the middle rows, he shrugged his bag off of his shoulders and plopped down in the seat next to Peter. “You mind?” he asked, though Peter knew he wasn’t really asking.

“No one sits here,” Peter said, and that seemed to be enough for Harley. The professor walked in, and class started.

After, Peter moved to get his bag, but Harley snatched it from him and put it on his back.

“Harley, do you have another class after this?” Peter already knew the answer to this question, but it fell from his lips anyway.

“Nah,” Harley said. “Your next class is biochem, right? Where’s that again?”

Harley followed Peter to his class and dropped off the backpack, leaving with a silent wave. Peter tried his best to focus on the lecture, but it slipped by him while his mind drifted elsewhere, and suddenly everyone around him was packing up, his notes were a complete mess, and Harley was standing by his side again. He didn’t say anything about Peter’s haphazard notes, just waited patiently while he packed up his things until the backpack was zipped, then he lifted the bag onto his arm.

“What were you doing?” Peter walked side by side with Harley as they made their way back to the dorm. Harley gave him a questioning look, and Peter amended, “while I was in class.”

Harley shrugged, and the backpack shifted against him. “Hung around. Studied. Was it-” his mouth twisted, then shut.

Peter’s stomach fluttered, though he didn’t know why. It felt sort of like being sick, but a pleasant feeling all the same. “Thanks,” he said, and maybe he didn’t mean for his arm to brush against Harley’s but it did, the pads of their fingers touched briefly, setting a spark ablaze at his fingertips and traveling up his arm. “For carrying my backpack. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” Harley said, and then he clicked his tongue. “Sorry. Rude. I mean, uh-” In all the time that Peter had been around his roommate, he had never seen him like this, nervous and blushing in a way that Peter could only describe as flustered. “You’re welcome.”

Peter knocked shoulders with him, casually, not really sure what else to say for the moment. They got to their dorm room, and Peter put his key in and opened the door. Harley shucked off Peter’s backpack and put it next to his bed before flopping onto his own.

“What, you don’t have work today?” Peter slipped out of his jacket, memory blinking back to the first day he got back, to Harley’s fingers on his neck…

“Nah,” Harley said, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m, uh, not gonna have work for a few days.”

“Did something happen?”

Harley shook his head. “Nothin’ I wanna talk about,” he said, and an awkward silence settled over them.

Peter sat on his bed, against the wall. His phone was in his hand but he wasn’t looking at it, he was looking at Harley. The words came out of his mouth faster than he thought them- “Hey, do you remember when, uh, you moved in? And I asked you if you’d want to see Manhattan sometime?” Harley turned his head to look at him, a soft but confused smile on his face. “Would you still want to go? I mean, if you don’t have work tomorrow, and I get out of class at, like two, I could show you around some of the cooler places. If you want?”

Harley broke into a wider smile, sending Peter’s pulse fluttering at a million miles a minute. “That sounds cool. I get out of class around two as well, so I’ll meet you here?”

Peter smiled back, just as wide. “Sounds good to me. Hey, wanna go grab dinner?”

Harley nodded, sitting up, and the two walked down to the dining hall. It was crowded as normal, but the two of them grabbed hamburgers and settled in a back corner, talking, laughing. Harley’s foot kept knocking against the inside of Peter’s foot, brushing up against his ankle. Peter’s breath hitched a few times, but Harley’s face never betrayed any sign that he knew what he was doing. 

They finished their food and headed back upstairs, and both of them worked on homework and various things until Peter’s over-sensitive ears picked up light snoring coming from the desk and he turned to see Harley passed out in his chair. He walked over to him, shaking his shoulder gently. “Harley,” he whispered, but the boy made no movement. So, instead of trying harder to wake him up like Peter knew he probably should do, he kept one arm around Harley’s back, right at his shoulders. His other arm swept under his legs, gently holding him underneath the knees. Harley weighed next to nothing in Peter’s arms, and it was only in this movement that he felt a slight ache in his right shoulder. As he carried Harley over to bed the boy stirred in his arms, drawing closer to him, pressing his face against Peter’s chest. He set Harley down in his bed, slowly pulling the covers up over him. Harley turned as Peter drew back, settling his cheek into Peter’s receding palm. Peter froze, but slowly, ever so slightly, continued to draw his hand back until Harley was alone in his bed. 

Peter turned off his own lamp and changed quickly in the dim light of the city, slipping into bed. As he settled into bed, adjusting himself ever so slightly, he heard Harley stir on the other side of the room. Peter froze as Harley sat up, and just barely caught him whispering “how did I… I thought I was… did he… ” with a look at the desk. Peter stayed still until Harley settled back down, and only then did he manage to rest.

In the morning, Harley was up at his desk when Peter woke up around nine. He yawned and sat up, the sheets falling off of his body to reveal his bare chest. 

Harley shot a sideways glance at him. “What happened last night?”

Peter froze mid-stretch, his lanky arms extended in the air. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice only shaking slightly at the poignant questions.

“I mean…” Harley shook his head. “I dunno, I just thought I remembered something from last night. Did I fall asleep at my desk?”

Peter lowered his arms and shrugged. “Yeah, but I woke you up and you got into bed.”

“I don’t remember that,” Harley mumbled. “I thought…”

“Thought what?” Peter leaned down onto the floor and pulled a shirt over his chest, some old t-shirt that was in desperate need of a wash to try and get an old pizza stain out of it.

“Never mind,” Harley said. “Just forget it.”

Peter tried for a smile, but Harley’s back was turned. “Okay.” He’d be happy to.

The morning passed quickly, Peter taking a shower and working in silence near Harley, neither of them speaking but letting it be a comfortable silence nonetheless. Peter got a text from Mr. Stark halfway through the day, letting him know the suit was fixed and that he could probably go back out on patrol. Peter’s heart quickened at the thought because  _ man  _ had he missed being out on the streets the past few nights. Just as he was about to type back an excited reply, he looked at Harley, who was focusing on something for calculus and remembered their plans for the afternoon. So instead, he told Mr. Stark that his shoulder was still a little sore and that he’d go and get his suit tomorrow. New York could deal with Spider-Man being gone for one more day.

He said goodbye to Harley, got lunch, and went to class. Only a few more hours to go, and Peter’s mind was racing so much he could hardly keep one thought in his brain. His leg bounced impatiently all throughout his Intro to Robotics class, so much so that the person sitting next to him kept sending him annoyed looks, but Peter was only focused on the time ticking down, slowly, too slowly. His mind was too filled with ideas for where he would show Harley. Maybe that tiny coffee shop where they draw really good Spider-Man masks in the foam? Or, maybe that cool bookstore with all the blueprints and design books? Better to be safe than sorry and stay away from Mr. Stark’s tower, but maybe-

Then, in the blink of an eye, fellow classmates were packing up and heading out the door. Peter stuffed his laptop in his bag and rushed out the door, and when he got to the dorm room, it was empty. Peter looked at himself in the mirror and shook his head at the science pun, dashing over to his drawers to pull out his shirts and change. He had just finished buttoning up a green checkered shirt over his jeans when he heard the door creak open. He whipped his head around, and Harley was staring at him, head cocked in that way that had his eyes filled with curiosity.

“Ready to go?”

“Uh, yeah!” Peter said, a little too enthusiastically. He pulled himself back. “Are, uh, are you ready?”

Harley spread his arms and turned lazily in a circle. “How do I look?”

It was only a simple dark red sweater and some dirty jeans, but Peter’s mouth went dry, and it took him a few moments to remember how to speak. “Uh, really good! I mean, uh, you look fine. For walking around, I mean. Let’s go!”

Harley laughed again, full snickering, and Peter smiled, heat rising to his cheeks. They exited the campus and Peter breathed in the brisk, slightly smoggy air of New York City. Familiarity. “Where to first?”

Harley shrugged, falling into step beside Peter. “You’re the one leading this tour,” he said.

“Oh, right.” Peter looked around. “Well, do you want to see some of the tourist spots, or would you rather see some of the actually cool spots in NYC.”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’m sure anything you think is worth showing me will be good.”

Peter’s mouth opened and closed like a fish for a few moments before coming to a decision. “Alright! Let’s go then.”

“Where are we going?” Harley asked.

“It’s no fun if I tell you! C’mon!” Peter grabbed Harley’s arm at the elbow and pulled him along. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be posted on Friday, 5/31, so stick around because it's one of my favorites  
> Comments and kudos fuel my soul, so it's pretty cool when you leave them. They really do brighten my day.
> 
> Talk to me on tumblr about this? the-end-of-endgame


	7. Chapter Six / New York, New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley and Peter explore New York! Welcome to the fluffiest chapter of the fic my friends!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ay not gonna lie I wanted to wait until this hit 3000 hits so I could say I love you all 3000 but I'm impatient and I'm sure by the time people start reading this chapter it'll hit 3000 so I LOVE YOU ALL 3000 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING <3  
> alright onto New York  
> Shoutout to my irl friends who read this knowing my writing style, love u. you trust me, right? ;)

Harley was so glad he decided to go.

Kir had texted him, the previous night, let him know that he was supposed to come to the garage. He told Kir that he wasn’t going to show up, much to her frustration. As he explained to her, of course he wanted to get back to their work as soon as he could, but he sorta had a date.

A date?

Harley wasn’t sure. It sort of felt like a date, when Peter grabbed his arm and dragged him down a side street to point out some crazy graffiti he found once or into a little shop that Harley would have missed had he been walking around on his own. The action made his heart skip a beat, and Harley wasn’t sure what to make of it. Because there were also the times where they were just walking, and their fingers would brush, but neither of them moved their hands any more than that. 

Harley stole a glance at Peter, but he was always talking, gesticulating with his left hand at the street, the sky, the buildings. Harley thought he could listen to Peter talk forever, let that strong, excited voice of his carry him off to sleep, he wouldn’t mind if Peter never stopped talking.

He knew that he had been avoiding Peter the first few weeks of being roommates, and even when he tried to justify it as work being busy - those chitauri orbs were no joke, and Harley couldn’t count the number of times he had come home with bandaged fingers from the cuts or burns he had gotten from them - the lingering pulse of guilt still rung in his stomach. The last few days had been good, but not enough to dissipate the feeling

“D’you want to get coffee?” Peter asked, pulling Harley out of his thoughts. A vague look of concern came over Peter. “You look tired, ‘s all. I know a coffee shop where they make really good lattes, it’s only, uh.”

Harley has grabbed Peters arm at the elbow, just like Peter had done earlier. “Coffee sounds great, Parker.” Harley watched pink brush across Peter’s cheeks and smiled in quiet satisfaction. He let his hand drop from Peter’s elbow, slowly, trailing down his arm until he pulled away, brushing at Peter’s fingertips. He heard Peter inhale quick, then resolutely start off, calling for Harley to follow him.

They pulled up to the coffee shop, and Harley slid in front Peter just as he finished talking and ordered a latte. Peter tried to put his wallet on the counter, but Harley picked it up and handed it back. “Peter, I got this,” he said, pulling out some money. “It’s the least I can do.”

“I, uh, yeah, okay.” Peter stepped back with a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. 

Harley paid for the two coffees and they took a seat at the window, looking out at the citizens and tourists walking by. Peter stood up to get the coffees before Harley has a chance, waving him off. 

“Why decaf?” Harley questioned as Peter took a tentative sip of his latte that had a foam design of a pair of hearts in it. “Aren’t you a barely functioning college student who relies on caffeine to survive too?”

Peter snorted. “No, I, uh, I can’t really drink caffeine.”

“You allergic or something?”

“Something like that.” Peter smiled into his coffee, taking another sip. Setting the cup down, he pulled out his phone. “Hey, uh, there’s this place, it’s a little out of the way, but it’s this scrap yard I like to swing by sometimes. I know you liked tinkering with stuff or making stuff, whatever you’re doing, and I thought that you might want to check it out? With me?”

Harley swallowed the dregs of his coffee. The caffeine coursed through him as his fingers began to tap relentlessly on the table. “I didn’t think you’d remember that about me. That I like to build stuff, I mean.”

Peter’s forehead scrunched up. “Why wouldn’t I remember that?” he said, and Harley remembered their late night conversations in the dining hall when the only people in there were stoners looking for munchies and the two of them. He just hadn’t thought that Peter was actually listening to him.

“Oh,” Harley said, a flush coming over him. “I guess you’re right.”

Peter set down his now empty cup and shook his head slightly. “I think I put a little too much sugar in my latte,” he said, and his eyes brightened. “Let's go!”

Energized from the coffee break, Harley followed Peter outside, where he was hailing a cab. “Jeez, it’s been forever since I’ve had to do this,” he muttered quietly, but not quietly enough for Harley to miss what he said. 

“Why’s that? You live in New York, don’t you? Doesn’t everyone in New York City take a cab everywhere?”

Peter laughed as one pulled up. “Not all of us. I prefer to walk, but like I said, this one is kind of out of the way and I want to spend as much time there as possible.” They slid into the backseat of the yellow car and Peter gave directions to the driver. “Plus,” Peter said, shaking his head a little. “I’m bound to get distracted walking all the way there from here, lead you off to some, uh other weird place around here.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Harley said.

“I- uh. You wouldn’t? Really? My other friends are always trying to keep me on track, and I gotta stay focused because of, uh, work.”

Harley shrugged. “Maybe your friends need to start letting you wander around.”

Peter laughed. “Yeah, no, I’m grateful for them, really. I’d be a lot worse without Ned and MJ. They keep me straight.”

Harley tried not to read too much into that. The cab had stopped a while ago, and now they were standing in bumper-to-bumper traffic. “I’m starting to understand why you NYC natives don’t take these cabs.”

“Ha. Yeah, it’s can be pretty bad around this time. I should’ve thought about that before hailing one.”

“I don’t mind,” Harley said, turning towards Peter in his seat. “Gives me more of a chance to talk to you, doesn’t it?”

“I guess.” Peter stretched out, his leg spilling over into Harley’s side of the car. Then quietly, almost a murmur. “You know, for a while, I didn’t think you’d ever want to talk to me at all.”

Guilt panged Harley’s insides again. “I’m-” The words caught in his throat, but he swallowed his pride and forced them out. “I’m sorry for doin’ that. I shouldn’t have… I don’t know, I shouldn’t have been mean to you just because I don’t like Tony Stark.” He could feel himself closing up over that admission, but he forced himself to keep still, looking at Peter.

“Yeah, it really was not cool, man. I thought I’d be staying with a roommate who hated me all year.” Peter scratched the back of his head, ruffling the brown hair that lay on top. “But I’m glad that now- I mean, with these past few days, I was- I’m hoping you’re not just going to go back to disappearing on me every day after today, I thought these last few days have been pretty cool, and I’m glad you agreed to come.”

Harley loved listening to Peter talk, but he suddenly felt a strong urge to surge forward and press Peter against the side window and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe, he wanted to swallow the noises Peter made and capture them for himself, a selfish collection of noises that were his.

But he didn’t, because he didn’t want to kiss Peter in slow-moving traffic in the middle of Manhattan. He also wasn’t certain that Peter wanted to be kissed, though most signs were pointing to the contrary. Instead, he laughed. “You ramble a lot, Parker.”

“Ah, sorry,” Peter looked down at the seat, twisting his neck slightly. “I’ll try and tone it down.”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t saying I minded.” Harley tilted his head, thinking a moment before choosing his words. “It’s pretty cute, actually.”

Harley didn’t know a person could blush that much. Peter stammered but said nothing, and soon the cab was moving again.

They didn’t talk to each other very much on the ride to the junkyard, just casual conversation and light small talk. Peter’s legs stretched out a little more until one brushed up against the inside of Harley’s foot. Harley did his best not to react and stretched his leg out a little more as well so that Peter’s foot was pressing against his calf. Peter’s eyes flicked towards for him, and for the briefest second they met, but his expression didn’t change and he hardly acknowledged it as he launched into talking about something he had done in his chemistry lab the other day. Harley listened intently, storing pieces of information that were important to him in his brain, like how Peter described himself when the mixture he had been working on exploded, covering him in thick, white foam. Harley laughed loudly when Peter told him of how he had accidentally spilled some solution on the ground, which caused the professor to slip and nearly fall into a table, and he filed away the mental image of Peter’s concerned face rushing to help the instructor up.

Eventually, they reached the junkyard, Peter paid the cab driver, and Harley muttered a quick “thanks” before being pulled out of the car by Peter’s surprisingly strong hand. They stumbled into the junkyard and Peter let go of Harley’s hand, much to his disappointment. Before they stepped through the gates - well, the broken chain fence - Peter’s head suddenly jerked up next to him and he began to look around like he was searching for something.

“What’s up?” Harley asked cautiously. Peter rubbed his clothed arms as if they itched. 

“Probably nothing,” he said, but his mouth was set in a grim line. “I just thought I heard- a camera. It’s nothing.” A normal bright, smile took the place of his worried expression. “Sorry. C’mon.”

Peter led him around, showing him some of the better spots where people dumped better pieces of metal than others, or places to avoid, because some ‘bad people’, as Peter put it, dumped hazardous material around here. Harley squinted at it for a moment, then drew back because it looked like it was glowing. Peter grimly agreed with his assessment and grabbed Harley’s hand again to pull him away from it. At one point, Peter had pulled out sunglasses, saying that they helped him focus better.

“Are you, like, sensitive to light, or something?” Harley asked between pulling up sheets of metal too thin for any of his projects.

Peter nodded slightly. “Yeah, I had an… accident a few years ago and one of the side effects was light sensitivity.”

Harley was shocked silent by the sudden admission of an “accident”. “What happened? An accident?”

Peter shook his head. “I’d rather not talk about it right now.”

“Okay.”

They continued to search the piles for material, but Harley only found a few pieces good enough for his work, and Peter didn’t find anything at all, though he didn’t look too bothered. The sun was beginning to get low in the sky, peeking out from behind apartment buildings, and Harley’s stomach rumbled.

“Hey, are you hungry?” Peter said, and Harley didn’t know how he figured that out, because Harley was several feet away from him. “Because I’m starving, man. I haven’t had any food since before my lecture this morning and I forgot to get something at the coffee shop but I’m super hungry right now dude. Let’s go get dinner.”

Harley pocketed the material he had found in his jean pocket, a few CPUs, a hard drive, and a strangely tough piece of metal. “Yeah, I’m hungry too. Where do you want to eat?”

“Oh, man.” Peter grinned widely. “Do you like Thai? I know this great Thai place. My aunt and I used to go there all the time when I still lived with her, especially when she would burn a new recipe or when something cool happened. Do you want to go? They have some of the best lettuce wraps I’ve ever eaten, and… ”

Harley let him ramble, transfixed by the way the evening sunlight shone orange on the side of him, casting half his face in shadow but lighting up the first side in a radiant fashion. Peter tapered off his words, staring at him, and Harley realized he hadn’t given an answer. “Sounds great, Parker. Lead the way.”

He walked side-by-side with Peter street after street, pointing out buildings he thought were cool or listening to Peter talk about some of the technology around Manhattan.

When they got to the restaurant, however, it was absolutely packed. All the tables were full, and there was a line out the door waiting to get in.

“What the hell?” Peter groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “It was definitely not this busy last Thursday night.”

“That’s okay,” Harley said. “We can go somewhere else, I don’t mind.” The aroma of spices and curry drifted out to him, and Harley’s stomach growled loud enough that he was sure Peter heard it this time.

“No, no, I can fix this!” Peter said brightly. “Just, wait right here. I got this.” He ran off, leaving Harley alone on a strange street corner. Harley shuffled a little closer to the building, leaning against a streetlamp that turned on five minutes after Peter had run off. 

About ten minutes after that, Peter walked out from behind the building, holding two plastic bags full of takeout containers. “No lettuce wraps tonight, apparently their romaine went bad.” Peter had taken his sunglasses off, nd his hair had been strangely squashed flat again.

Harley gaped at him. “The line is out the door! Did you run to another restaurant or something?”

Peter chuckled loudly. “No, no. The owner owed me a favor. I helped his business out when some guys tried to rob it. It also helps that I’m a regular customer.”

Harley furrowed his eyebrows. “You stopped a robbery?”

Peter laughed again, a little nervously. “No, no, not like that. I just, I was walking by when I saw it, and I called the cops on them. That’s all.”

“Oh, yeah,” Harley agreed. “That makes way more sense.” He looked at the two bulging bags in Peter’s hands. “Want me to carry one?”

“No, I got it,” Peter said cheerfully. It really wasn’t that far to their dorm, and it seemed like no time before Harley was wrestling with the sticky door lock to open the door. He pressed the key in, turned it, and forced his shoulder against the door to finally push the door open.

“We have the worst door on the whole campus,” he grumbled.

“Probably,” Peter said lightly.

They set themselves up on the floor space in between their beds, putting a pillow on the ground for their butts. Harley helped Peter spread out the food on the floor between them. Harley nearly asked Peter if he wanted to watch a movie, but something held him back. The air between them had grown more charged throughout the day, every interaction, every touch caused the air to grow thicker between them, and now it hung over them like a heavy cloud. It wasn’t unpleasant, but Harley knew it was there and he could tell Peter felt the same, although neither of them seemed to be willing to make a move.

So they began to eat, passing boxes of pad thai and chicken and curry and rice between them. Harley talked about the bookshop they had stopped at, how he wanted to go back there, and Peter talked about the coffee shop they went to, he talked about all the cool designs he’s been given while he was there. Their jovial laughter filled the small room, echoing off the plaster walls and surrounding them. Harley looked at Peter and saw a fondness fill the other boy’s eyes across the space. Discarded cartons of food sat in between them, and their conversation lulled with their full bellies.

“I really am sorry, you know,” Harley said, leaning forward a little, a little closer to Peter in the already-small space between them. “About ignoring you the past few weeks, and being an asshole to you when I wasn’t ignoring you.”

“You haven’t been an asshole to me lately.” Peter pointed out. “When I injured my shoulder, you helped me out, and you made sure I ate, and-”

“Well, you made sure I didn’t fall asleep at my desk, I guess, so I’m pretty sure we’re even,” Harley countered, but then took a breath, because he still had more he wanted to say. “I just wanted to apologize for how I acted because, well, I’ve never lived outside of Rose Hill my whole life, so I really didn’t know how to handle you.” The admission hung between them, still in the air

“Handle me?” Peter quirked his head. “What do you mean?”

“Parker,” Harley spoke seriously, and felt the air electrify between them.

“Yeah?” Peter leaned forward. Their faces were only a few inches apart, close enough that Harley began to lean in, tilting his head. Then, out of nowhere, Peter drew back.  “If that was about me working for Mr. Stark, then I’ve been trying not to bring him up because I know it makes you upset, but, shit, I just did it again, I didn’t mean to, sorry, I just-”

Harley felt familiar anger well up in him again at the mention of that name, but he was staring at Peter’s long lashes dip with every blink of his pretty brown eyes, and something softened and cooled within him. He laughed suddenly. “You talk far too much, Peter Parker,” he drawled.

“Make me stop, then.” The command jumped out of Peter’s mouth, seemingly unwillingly. He furiously blushed and stuttered, and Harley felt his mouth dry up, felt heat overtake his cheeks and rush down his body. “I- I mean, uh.” Peter started to stutter a response, but he didn’t have the chance because Harley took one of his own and surged forward, closing the space between them.

Kissing Peter was just as electric as Harley thought it might be, sparks flying between their lips as Peter’s moved pliantly against his. Harley places a hand in front of him and moved forward, pushing Peter back until he heard the other boy’s back touch the frame of the bed. Then Harley stopped pushing Peter and began to move forward himself, not entirely sure what he was doing but following instinct nonetheless. His hand was on the ground between Peter’s legs, brushing awfully close to the seams of his pants, and he used it as a grounding point to push himself closer to Peter until his nose brushed Peter’s chin and he could feel the pressure of the buttons on his shirt against him.

Peter pulled back slightly, mouth open and gaping, gasping for air. “Harley, I- yes, uh,  _ ah _ .”

Harley took the opportunity before him and dove back in, this time with an open mouth that pushed his tongue into Peter’s mouth, and Peter’s mouth made a sound, a vibration that sent shivers down the back of Harley’s spine. He felt hands on his back and under his leg, slowly moving Harley until he was sitting in Peter’s lap, leaning into his chest, pressing his hand against Peter’s shoulder and placing one hand on the floor next to them for balance. A little too late, he realized that it was Peter’s injured shoulder, so he moved that hand along Peter’s jaw, sliding up to the back of his neck, grabbing some of the curls that lay coiled back there and pulling, slightly. He detached his mouth from Peter’s just in time to hear the breathy moan that escaped his mouth at the pull, his head falling back at the touch.

Harley tilted his head and pressed soft, open-mouthed kissed against his jaw, moving lower until he reached Peter’s neck. He heard Peter gasp, felt the hands around his back tighten, and Harley smiled as he kissed the bite on Peter’s neck, right in the dip of his collarbone.

“Harley, wait, hold on,” the other boy panted.

“Hm?” Harley broke his mouth from Peter’s neck to look up at him.

“Just-lemme stand-” Harley pressed another sharp kiss to his neck before strong, wiry arms wound around him, and Peter stood up, pulling Harley close to his chest, pushing them nose-to-nose. Peter turned them around and kissed Harley fiercely, pushing him back a step with every kiss until Harley felt the wood of the bed frame against his calves. 

He felt himself tipping backward, and he frowned against Peter’s quick lips. “Now, hold on just a minute, darlin’,” he huffed, grabbing the collar of Peter’s shirt with both hands. His fingers fumbled to unbutton the green garment, one button at a time but still too slow. “I am not gonna be the one-” his words were cut off with another lightning-quick kiss, and he growled slightly, grabbing Peter’s waist to turn him around. His fingers yanked on the last button and it released. Harley pushed the shirt off of Peter’s shoulders and threw it over his shoulder somewhere behind him. 

He felt Peter hum against another open-mouthed kiss, a deep, low sound that vibrated throughout him as tongue brushed tongue, and then hands were on the hem of his sweater, and the kiss was broken just long enough for fabric to pass in front of his eyes and then both boys were shirtless. Peter’s mouth crashed against his in a heavy wave, a kiss that swallowed any sound that Harley tried to make, so he pushed back, and pushed Peter with the palm of his hand flat against his chest and watched him fall onto the bed. Peter let out a sharp exhale of surprise that quickly melted into a soft smile as his hands traveled from Harley’s waist to the loops at his jeans, and pulled Harley down towards him. 

“I’ve wanted to do this since you opened the door that first day,” Harley breathed against Peter’s jaw as his hand slipped lower and lower to the denim on Peter’s hips.

“Are you serious?” Peter’s hands gripped his hips, and it sort of felt like he was the one holding Harley up, even though Harley knew he was bracing himself on the bed with his knee in between Peter’s legs and his fingers curling into the mattress next to his head. “I never thought that this would happen in a million years, I was sure that you hated me,” he said incredulously, laugh turning into a deeper moan as Harley’s hand found the seam where fabric met flesh.

Peter bit at his lip, drawing it between his teeth, and Harley gasped. “I- I told you- I’m-s-”

“I know. Don't worry about it. Just-” Peter's hips began shifting and wriggling as his jeans slipped further and further off his hips. Harley leaned down, fervently capturing his lips in a kiss, and they stopped talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! That sure was nice! And they're kissing now! Surely things can only get better from here on out!  
> talk to me on tumblr about these beautiful boys @the-end-of-endgame :)  
> Next Chapter: Monday, 6/3


	8. Chapter Seven / Warehouses and a Dinner Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter wakes up after eventful day yesterday, and Tony is pretty pissed he's been blowing off work. If only he knew what he'd been blowing instead...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sdjfsklls I'm cringing at that chapter summary but it's also too funny for me to change so here we are.

Peter squinted his eyes at the morning sunlight streaming in through the blinds. He was immediately aware of the unfamiliar vibration against his chest, light breathing with the hint of a snore to it. He opened his eyes and they fell on Harley, whose back was pressed against him. Peter’s hand was draped over his bare chest, drawing Harley closer towards him. His light brown hair was messy, haphazard from sleep and the previous night’s activities. 

Harley stirred underneath Peter, who tried his best not react and to let them stay in this peaceful state, but Harley turned and shifted to face Peter, giving them a few inches of space between them. A look of surprise crossed the boy's features for a moment before settling into a soft smile. “G’mornin’.”

Harley’s voice was rough with sleep, and it sent shivers down Peter’s body. “Uh, wow. Morning.”

Harley’s eyes flicked down towards Peter’s chest, and that peaceful smile drew into a slight frown. “Aw, damn.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Peter asked, anxiety sprouting in his stomach. 

Harley’s fingers came up and traced the divot where his collarbone was. “I thought for sure I left at least a mark or two there last night.”

Peter blushed, silently cursing his damn healing factor. “W-well,” he stuttered. “You could, uh, always leave some more, I guess.”

Harley smiles devilishly, that same smile he had seen on his face the previous night. “Oh, okay,” he said simply. Peter’s back arched slightly as Harley began pressing hard, biting kisses to his neck, attacking it was a ferocity that turned Peter to putty beneath Harley’s wandering hands and lips. He drew a ragged breath, chest tightening as Harley’s fingers danced across his stomach. Harley pulled back, looking adoringly at Peter. “Better.” Maybe those words were supposed to come out cool and collected, but Harley’s face was flushed and he stared at Peter with dazed eyes. Peter leaned in and kissed him soundly, pulling on his shoulders to draw the boy closer into him. 

“Your mouth tastes like old Thai food,” Harley grumbled, pulling back and wrinkling his forehead. “Go brush your teeth before you kiss me again, please.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just the room. I don’t think we cleaned up at all last night.”

“Well, we cleaned up a little bit,” Harley said, smirking. 

Peter blushed at the memory of the previous night and picked up some of the takeout boxes in lieu of responding. He dropped them in the trash can on his way into the bathroom, where he proceeded to brush his teeth. He heard the shuffling of feet and more garbage being tossed into the can before Harley entered the bathroom behind him, grabbing his own toothbrush. When they both finished, it was Harley now who grabbed Peters jaw to bring them to a kiss, and Peter tilted his head slightly, just enough that their noses barely brushed each other as Harley pressed further again Peter, crowding him up against the bathroom counter. Peter pushed his hands against the counter and lifted himself up so that he could sit on it. Harley’s hands settled around his waist, fingertips just brushing at the tops of his boxers “I keep forgetting how damn strong you are,” he said lowly. Peter smirked, knowing he could pick Harley up right now without breaking a sweat. 

“I think you’d be surprised,” Peter whispered, leaning closer until his lips were just brushing the corner of Harley’s mouth. Harley laughed, his breath warm against Peter’s cheek, and then he was kissing him again. Peter’s hand grasped the back of Harley’s head, tangling fingers around his long blond locks. Mouths opened, and Harley’s teeth scraped at Peter’s lower lip as their tongues explored each other’s mouths. Peter moaned into Harley’s mouth as Harley’s hand dipped below the waist of his boxers, but his ears picked up another sound from the other room.

“Shit,” he mumbled. Harley drew back, head turning towards the other room.

“What’s that alarm?”

Peter sighed, sliding down from the counter. For a moment, Harley’s arms wrapped around his waist, catching him in his short drop. “It’s… it’s my boss. I was supposed to go back to work yesterday, but I didn’t because, well, I was with you.”

Harley smiled. “That’s real sweet, darlin’. But I’m guessing he’s pissed now?”

“No, probably not pissed, just…” Peter wandered from the bathroom to the main room, picking up his shirt from off the floor. As his fingers fumbled around the buttons, he was reminded of the previous night, of Harley’s fingers brushing his chest as they opened his shirt. “...just needs me at work. For something.” He grabbed his jeans from his drawers, yanking them over his hips. 

Harley was still in his boxers, watching him, which Peter found incredibly unfair. He had to force himself to pull shoes over socks instead of grabbing Harley’s waist and kissing him senseless. 

“So, you work directly for Stark?”

Peter looked over at him warily. “Yeah.”

“Can I… can I ask a favor?” Harley said, and he sounded strangely nervous. Peter turned to face him after tying his shoes and nodded, quirking his head slightly.

“Well, you know I don’t like Stark much,” Harley crossed the room to stand in front of Peter, placing his hands on his shoulders. “And I would really appreciate if he didn’t know who I was,” Harley said seriously. “Could you maybe… not tell him about me?”

Peter’s anxiousness left him in a rush, and he smiled. “Hey, man, I wasn’t going to tell him anyway. Mr. Stark is great and all, but I don’t need him spying on my-” he faltered. “On my roommate. So don’t worry about it,”

Harley’s mouth twitched into a slight smile. “Roommate?”

Peter felt his face heat up. “W-well, I mean, I didn’t know if, um.”

Harley’s soft lips kissed him gently, a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth. “What time do you get off work?”

Peter’s breath turned ragged under the gentle touches. Harley’s lips on his. Harley’s fingers smoothing the collar of his shirt, fleeting over the spots on his neck where the bites were just beginning to heal. “Uh- um.” He never really had a set work time, he usually just left at some point to patrol. “I can get off before dinnertime?”

“Can I text you directions?”

Peter smiled, leaning in to press a solid kiss on Harley’s mouth. “It’s a date?”

He meant it to be just one kiss, but Harley looked at him with wide eyes, said “yeah” breathlessly, and grabbed the back of his head, drawing him in.

\---

Peter arrived at Avengers Tower twenty minutes later than he had told Tony, stumbling out of the cab and running up the stairs to the lab. He waved a quick hello to Pepper as he ran by her office, and stuttered to a stop as the glass doors opened with a quiet hiss.

Tony didn’t look up at first, just waved dismissively at him and said “First you tell me you need one more day for your shoulder, which I know is bullshit, and then you’re a whole hour later than you said you’d be, what on earth-” Then he looked up.

And laughed. 

Peter turned and caught his reflection in the glass surrounding the lab. His face immediately colored as he gazed upon his mussed hair, swollen lips, and red marks dotting his neck.

“Maybe spend some time fixing your, uh, clothes before entering the lab, kid,” Tony chuckled.

Peter looked down and noticed that he had buttoned his shirt up unevenly, and it was untucked. He hurried to fix it, buttoning and unbuttoning as quickly as he could. He looked up at Tony, who still had a massive smirk on his face. “Sorry I’m late,” he said.

“Oh, I highly doubt that,” Tony snickered. “So, who was the lucky girl?”

“It’s a guy,” Peter said offhandedly, reaching for the suit on the table.

Tony snatched the suit from the table and held it above his head, on the other side of the lab table. “A guy, hm? Would this happen to be the same guy who you’re rooming with right now? The one who hates you? And me, for that matter.”

Peter rolled his eyes in exasperation and jumped on top of the table, landing lightly in front of Tony and snatching the suit from his grasp. He backflipped off and laid the suit out to examine the web-shooters. “Did you find out anything about the weapon that one dude shot me with?”

“That’s the most obvious change of subject I’ve heard in a while, but I’ll bite. Yeah, I did, and actually-” Tony pulled up holographic screens that displayed some black shard of metal. “-it looks like what you were shot with was supposed to explode into dust, but we managed to save some shards.”

“And?”

“And there were traces of Chitauri cores in the metal.”

“Chitauri?” Peter blanched. “Like, we’re talking 2012, Battle of New York Chitauri?”

“Yeah, we are.” Tony sighed. “I don’t know how they got their hands on this stuff, I was sure I had cleaned it all up, and I thought you took care of the last of it with the Vulture.”

Peter nodded, frowning. “I thought I did too. But now it’s popping up again-”

Tony snapped his fingers. “FRIDAY, scan Manhattan and Brooklyn for traces of Chitauri matter.”

“Scanning.”

A map of New York City popped up, holographic buildings and streets. As the AI processed, Peter watched purple dots, varying in size, pop up in different places all over the island.

“Shit,” Peter whispered. 

“FRIDAY, link common features in the buildings housing the Chitauri cores.”

“Most buildings seem to be warehouses, garages, or storage units. One is an apartment building in Manhattan.”

“Alright, and who owns these buildings?”

There was silence for a moment, then: “Unknown.”

“Unknown? What-” Tony groaned, dragging a hand down his face.

“There are no financial records of any kind? Who were the previous owners?” Peter asked. FRIDAY rattled off some names, but they were all generic names or companies, and nothing turned up upon digging deeper.

They spent a few hours researching, working, talking. At one point they ate lunch, though if Peter was honest he couldn’t remember what he ate.

“I’m gonna head out on patrol,” Peter said eventually, leaning back and stretching in his chair. “I’ll go visit the warehouses, see if I can get answers from anything there.”

“Alright. I tweaked your suit a bit, so hopefully it should be safe from their disabling technology. Maybe bring extra web-shooters with you, just in case.”

“You got it, Mr. Stark.” Peter ducked into the back room and changed quickly, tapping the center spider emblem to tighten the suit. “I’ll keep you posted.”

As he swung across the New York skyline, he kept up a conversation with Tony. “Hey, did anything ever happen to those guys the police took care of back at your warehouse?”

“Police?” Tony said, setting aside a screwdriver. “What are you talking about?”

Peter’s stomach dropped slightly as he instructed Karen to pull up a list of arrests from that day. He scanned through them as quick as he could, but no arrest listed the group of twenty he had webbed and trusted the police to put in jail. “Nevermind. I’ve got another thing to solve, I guess.”

Peter dropped onto the ground in front of the first warehouse and walked through the door. “The front door, kid?"

“It’s silent in there,” Peter said. As he entered through the unlocked front door, his suspicions were proved correct. “No one is in here right now.”

“Cameras?” 

“Yeah.” Peter flicked his gaze up to the security cameras in the upper corners, but as his lenses adjusted to the darkness of the warehouse, he noticed that the camera lens was cracked, slightly. “But I think they’ve been using them as target practice. They’re not sending out any signal.”

“How about the orbs, kid?”

Peter quickly scanned the room, looking for the alien purple objects. The room was mostly empty, spare for a few big, black boxes. He pushed on them, but the locks were solid and wouldn’t budge. “Karen, can you tell me what’s in these boxes?”

“The material is too thick to scan through. You’d have to open the box, Peter.”

“And I can’t do that without breaking the locks and letting them know someone’s been here,” Peter mused. “I’ll come back to this another time, I guess.”

He meant to check out other warehouses, but there were robberies and muggings and jacked cars that caught his attention on the way. Tony dropped off the call a while ago when it became obvious he wasn’t going to get to another warehouse. 

Before he knew it, Karen was reminding him of the text Harley had sent him around lunchtime, an address to a restaurant and a time, which was only thirty minutes from now.

“Karen, can you tell Mr. Stark I’m heading back to the tower?”

“I’ll tell Tony you’re on your way back.”

Peter swung in through an open window that closed behind him and changed quickly, rifling through the bag of extra clothes he left in the tower for something a little nicer than the sweaty shirt he had been wearing earlier that morning. To his surprise and delight, he found a nicer button up shirt that he hadn’t seen since before college started- in fact, he was pretty sure he wore this to his graduation dinner. Nonetheless, he put it on over his darker jeans and hurried out of the tower, managing to get to the restaurant only a few minutes late.

Harley was waiting outside, leaning against an unlit streetlight. He had a jacket over his shoulder, and his face broke into a smile as Peter turned the corner and waved.

“Hey!” Peter said, smiling equally as wide as he walked up to the streetlight. Harley grabbed his hand as soon as they were close enough, threading their fingers together. He looked out at Peter’s face inquisitively.

“Your hair is all flat again,” he said, free hand raising to touch the top of Peter’s head. Peter realized suddenly that he still had mask-hair from earlier today, and he had forgotten to fix it. Harley’s fingers carded through his hair, fluffing it up slightly. He smiled again, hand slipping lower to rest at the base of Peter’s skull. “There.”

He drew him in for a sweet, soft kiss. His mouth tasted vaguely of oranges and spice, and Peter felt his insides slowly turning to mush under Harley’s lips. Eventually, both boys pulled back, eyes flicking up to the fluorescent sign above them.

“Hungry?” Harley asked.

“Starving,” Peter confirmed.

“Great.” Harley squeezed Peter’s hand and walked side-by-side with him as they entered the restaurant, which turned out to be seafood. They split shrimp and salmon since both of them ended up being indecisive about what they wanted, and the evening as a whole had Peter feeling like he was floating in the air. Harley’s hand stayed linked with his above the table for most of the meal, and when he stabbed a bite of salmon with a fork and put it up to Peter’s lips, it took a lot of Peter’s self-control to stop himself from making out with Harley right at that table over their food.

When they paid - splitting the bill - and left, Harley immediately crowded Peter up against a brick wall, apparently having the same ideas as Peter. Peter tilted his head aside as the open-mouthed kisses moved from his lips to down his jaw, sucking at the side of his neck, replacing the marks that had already faded from this morning. Harley’s breath was ragged as his teeth nipped at Peter’s earlobe before moving downward again, and for a moment, Harley’s presence was all Peter could focus on, filling his entire vision, consuming his senses-

_ “No, no, please leave me alone.” _

Peter’s head snapped up, and Harley pulled back with a confused face. He opened his mouth, but Peter shushed him under his breath. “There’s someone in trouble, a woman-” he focused his sense for a moment, spreading them out beyond the bubble him and Harley were encased in. “On the other side of this building. The other alley.”

_ “Please, you can take my purse, just let me leave.” _

Harley frowned. “Yeah, I can hear her… just barely, though.”

“C’mon.” Peter didn’t have a clue as to what he was going to do, only that he couldn’t stand the thought of staying in that spot while that woman was pleading on the other side of the building. He gripped Harley’s hand tightly as they ran past the large brick building, skidding to a stop in front of the alley. 

A low voice was grumbling harshly, towering over a young woman with long, wavy light hair. She was stumbling back, but there wasn’t much room left between her and the wall. 

“You gotta plan for this one, Parker?” Harley asked quietly.

“Not really. I never do,” Peter said, and before Harley could ask about that strange statement that Peter already regretting saying, he let go of Harley’s hand and stepped forward. “Hey!” he yelled, and he saw Harley jump slightly behind him. “Leave her alone, man.”

The other man turned to face him, and Peter refused to crumble under the leering expression, the knotted and crusty beard barely hiding cracked, yellow teeth. “Or what, pipsqueak.”

“I’ll call the police,” Peter said, though he wasn’t sure how much trust he had in the police these days. A threat was better than nothing, though.

“Aw, what for?” The man turned back to the blonde woman, which was slowly edging herself along the side was, as far away from him as she could get. “We were just havin’ a little fun back here, isn’t that right, baby?”

“Leave me alone,” the woman said firmly, squirming away from his reaching hands. 

Peter marched up to him, Harley following close behind. “You heard her.”

“Get lost, weirdo,” Harley said, and Peter felt steadied by Harley’s presence at his side. “Get the hell out of here.” 

The man faced them again and simply stared at them a minute before snarling and turning away. “This bitch isn’t even worth it,” he spat before marching away.

The woman against the wall exhaled heavily before beginning to cry a little. Peter rushed to her automatically, as he did normally when he was Spider-Man. The words flew automatically from his mouth: “Are you alright, ma’am?”

The woman sniffed, wiping her eyes and adjusting the black headband on her head. “Yes, sorry. Just a little overwhelmed. Thank you so much for saving me, both of you.” Her eyes met Peter’s, and he saw them sparkle in the dying sunlight. “I’m Gwen Stacy. What’s your name?”

“Peter Parker. And that’s Harley Keener.” He shot a look over at his shoulder at Harley, who was simply standing there, watching. He lifted his hand up and waved, slightly.

“It’s really nice to meet you both.” She squeezed Peter’s forearm, leaning close to him. “Thank you again for helping me out there.” She laughed. “That’s the last time I swipe right for a while.”

Peter stepped back, smiling. “Get home safe,” he said, and Gwen Stacy waved to them as she left the alley. As soon as she was out of sight, Peter turned to Harley with a smile, only for it to fall off his face. Harley’s expression was stormy, eyes staring at the ground. “Everything okay?”

“Let’s just go back to the dorm,” Harley said, and the words sounded bitter and twisted at Peter’s stomach, souring the food he had eaten just a little bit before. He began walking, and now Peter hurried to catch up with him. 

“I don’t… understand,” Peter finally said after a few blocks. “Are you upset because we helped her?”

Harley laughed bitterly, shaking his head. “No, I actually thought that was really fucking cool of you. It was just…”

“What?” Peter pressed.

“Well, she was a real cutie, wasn’t she?”

The words were said sarcastically, and tight, like Harley ripped them out of his mouth. Peter stared at him in silence for a minute before wrinkling his forehead and shaking his head. “Harley Keener, are you jealous?”

“No.” Harley’s lip was stuck out in a slight pout. “Well, a little. She was obviously interested in you. And we’ve only been, y’know, for like, a day. I totally understand if you would want to get her number. She goes to NYU, you know. I’ve seen her around.”

“Harley,” Peter spoke seriously. “I  _ like  _ you. I want to keep going on dates with you, and I want to keep kissing you, and I want to keep being with you. I don’t want to go on a date with her, I want to go on dates with  _ you _ .”

Harley sighed, but Peter caught the ghost of a smile on his lips. “I just don’t want you to leave me. It’s stupid-” He spoke so quietly that Peter wouldn’t have caught it without his enhanced hearing.

“I’m not planning on leaving.” Peter took Harley’s hand. He thought about their late-night conversations, about the time Harley told him about his dad and when he went to buy lottery tickets… and never came back. He linked fingers with him, squeezing tightly. “I know that we’ve only been together for a day, but I really like you. I’ve liked you for a long time. I’m not planning on going anywhere.” They paused underneath a tree where red leaves slowly fluttered down around them as the wind brushed through space. With his free hand, Peter cupped Harley’s jaw and turned his head to face him.

The kiss that they shared was euphoric, dazzling enough that Peter thought he was seeing stars around him as he kissed Harley back with deep enthusiasm. Peter tried to convey everything he was thinking with every touch they shared, and a promise thrummed between their lips, coursing through their bodies, all the way down to their feet and back up again into the sun-streaked sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see? everything's still fine :) next chapter is going to be fun.  
> Also listen I honestly didn't m e a n to introduce Gwen Stacy but it just happened. She's not coming back to this story though, so don't worry about it. Just a lil' easter egg for now.  
> comments and kudos remind me that I should probably have these chapters written in advance lmao !  
> talk to me on tumblr about this boys ! @the-end-of-endgame  
> Next chapter: Friday June 7th


	9. Chapter Eight / Weather Reports and Boat Rides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley meets an important person in Peter's life and attends a business meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of your lovely comments and kudos. you have no idea how happy it makes me every time I get a notification for a comment. You all make my day all the time :) And hopefully I make your day a little bit brighter with this chapter!

“They say it might snow tomorrow.”

“Hm.” Peter shifted slightly as he talked, lifting his head from its place on Harley’s chest briefly before settling back down. “They always say that, but it rarely snows until the middle of December.”

“A white Christmas?”

“Mhm. Usually,” Peter said. “Did you get white Christmases down in Tennessee?”

Harley scoffed, moment tapping Peter’s side with his hand. “‘Course we did, stupid. I don’t live  _ that _ far South.”

“I have no idea what states there are once I’m outside, like Pennsylvania. I’ve really only been outside New York once in my whole life.”

“Where’d you go?”

Peter sighed, flipping the page of the book he was reading with one hand. “Germany.”

Harley stilled his hand running through Peter’s hair briefly. He was pretty sure his eyes were bugging out of his head. “Why Germany of all places?”

Peter shrugged, the movement rubbing up against Harley’s chest. “It was an internship thing. It was pretty intimidating, being in a different country. Plus, I was only fifteen.”

“How long have you been-” Harley bit at the words, but they wouldn’t come. “Interning at-”

“I think this is my fourth year. I don’t really keep track, to be honest.” Peter shifted, tilting his face up to look at him. “Hey, speaking of Tennessee, are you going home for Thanksgiving?”

Harley frowned and forced himself to look away. He still hadn’t told Peter about his mom, or really anything that happened after his dad. He wanted to, but the words always got stuck in his throat, squeezing it like a vice. The same thing happened again now, and his throat burned until he managed to squeeze out a “No.”

“Then, uh, do you want to come to my aunt’s? We can watch her try and salvage the turkey before we order take-out from a variety of restaurants. It’s pretty much tradition at this point.” Peter set the book down next to him and reached up to intertwine his fingers with Harley’s free hand. “I know we’ve only really been dating for a few weeks, but I don’t want you to be alone on Thanksgiving.”

“I don’t want to be a charity case, darlin’.” Harley felt his tone fall flat, annoyed.

“That’s not- I didn’t mean it like that.” Peter’s voice took on a petulant tone. “I didn’t say it because I feel bad for you. I said it because I want you there, Harley.”

“Oh.” Harley found that he didn’t have a response. “Um, okay.”

When Peter smiled, Harley could feel the shift in his expression against his chest. “Awesome.” He repeated his words, but they were quickly swallowed by the kiss Harley leaned down to press against his lips.

A few days later, Harley stepped out of the cab after Peter in front of a large brownstone apartment building. Peter entered the building with confidence, waving at the security guard as he did so, who waved back. They took the elevator up, and when Harley looked at Peter nervously as it shook and creaked, Peter squeezed his hand and informed him that it had been doing this as long as he could remember and that he’d only gotten stuck between floors twice. Harley’s face must have been pretty horrified because Peter’s laugh continued until the elevator dinged and opened. Peter knocked on the door right across the hall from the elevator, and there was a woman’s voice calling “Just a minute!” before footsteps sounded from behind the door and it swung open. 

“Peter, it’s so good to see you!” Peter was wrapped up in a tight hug, and he let go of Harley’s hand to squeeze the woman in front of him. She stepped back, and Harley barely got a chance to take in the woman’s features before he was drawn into a surprisingly tight hug of his own. He looked at Peter as strong, wiry arms squeezed his middle, but Peter only shrugged with an amused grin on his face. “And you must be Harley. Peter has told me so much about you.”

Peter stammered, his cheeks turning red. “Well, I- I mean, I told her about you, I didn’t, uh-”

“I’m Peter’s Aunt May, in case he forgot to mention, which he does sometimes. But you can just call me May.” May stepped back, smiling brightly.

Harley smiled back. “It’s nice to meet you, May.”

“C’mon in! I think the turkey should be coming out in a little bit.” Aunt May turned and hurried into the kitchen, her long brown hair flowing behind her. 

Harley stepped through the foyer behind Peter. His face wrinkled up immediately, and as they took their jackets and shoes off, Harley leaned close to Peter’s ear and whispered, “What the hell is that smell?”

Peter grimaced. “Tofurky. Burnt.”

“Oh, you weren’t kidding?”

“Nope. She’s doing her best, so be nice, Harley.”

Harley smirked. “What are you talking about? I’m always nice.”

Peter snorted a laugh. “Should I even bother bringing up September?”

“Just the beginning.” Harley shrugged. “We figured it out by the end.”

Peter pressed a kiss to his cheek. “We sure did.”

They entered the kitchen, and Harley stepped out of the way as Aunt May began fanning the oven with a towel, which was billowing smoke. She was cursing under her breath as she reached into the oven with two potholders, and pulled out a smoking… something on a pan that looked vaguely like a turkey. She set is on the counter and set her hands on her hips, staring at the offending item. She picked up a meat thermometer that laid on the counter and stuck it into the tofurky, she groaned.

“Pete, how can a turkey be burnt out the outside but frozen on the inside?”

Peter had a somber expression on his face, but Harley could tell he was struggling not to laugh. “I really don’t know, Aunt May. I’ve never cooked before.”

“Probably best you don’t, if you’ve picked up anything from her,” Harley mumbled, and yelped as Peter’s thin elbow drove into his side. “Hey!”

“I’m sorry, Harley. I really wanted this to be a good Thanksgiving for you,” May said, sighing. “And the mac and cheese didn’t turn out right either, so I guess that’s a bust.”

“Hey, Aunt May, it’s no big deal,” Peter said placatingly, putting a hand on her arm. “Why don’t we just order some takeout again this year.”

“You okay with that, Harley?” 

Harley blinked. “Yeah, whatever works for you, I guess.”

May opened a kitchen drawer and pulled out a pile of laminated takeout menus. “What are you hungry for? We can each pick out a couple of things and order them. Are you a vegetarian?”

Harley laughed. “Uh, no. I’m not. And I’ll eat whatever, so it’s no problem.”

“No, no, Harley, you have to pick something too.” A plethora of menus was shoved at him, so Harley took a few moments to look through them before deciding on some orange chicken and rice from some Chinese restaurant. Peter ordered some pizza, and May got some Middle Eastern food. They each placed their orders, and May turned on some music while they waited for the food.

The buzzer intoned. “Peter, would you mind going to get the food?” Harley stood up to follow his boyfriend, but Peter looked at him, then May, and winked. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Harley felt the color drain from his face a little, but Peter only kissed his forehead before slipping his shoes on and closing the door behind him.

“So, Harley.”

Harley couldn’t lie, May intimidated him a little. She stared at him with hard, calculating eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. “What do you do for work?”

Harley smiled, hoping he didn’t sound as nervous as he felt. “I work in a garage. Fixing cars, and bikes, and all that. I’m good with my hands.”

“Are you a mechanic?”

Harley also hoped his flinch wasn’t visible. “Just temporarily. Once I get my degree, hopefully, I’ll be moving on to bigger and better things.”

“Like what?”

Harley’s smile cracked a little. “I’m… not sure yet. I’m still deciding, you know?”

“Mm.” May looked at him pensively. “You make him happy, you know. He talks about you a lot.”

“He makes me really happy too,” Harley said, leaning back in his chair. “I didn’t think there could be anyone like him in the world.”

“There’s not,” May said, almost musingly. “He’s a real special kid.” She fixed Harley with a look that Harley couldn’t decipher but then shook her head. “Hm. Okay.”

“What?” Harley couldn’t help feeling like he was missing something.

“Nothing.” The pensive look was gone from her eyes, and she smiled brightly. “So, what classes are you taking?”

Harley swallowed dryly, but ran with it, and talked about his architecture class until a thump on the door caught both of their attention. May stood up before Harley could, waving him back as she met Peter at the door. There was a quick, quiet hushed conversation at the door that Harley was too far away to hear, and then both of them were back in the kitchen, laden with bags of food and boxes of pizza.

“Ah, the American Thanksgiving,” Peter exclaimed. He set down the two boxes of pizza. 

“Truly a modern cultural phenomenon,” Harley agreed sagely, tilting his head up to meet his boyfriend’s lips. “Hey, darlin’.”

“Hey yourself,” Peter said, mouth quirking into a smile. “May grill you too hard?”

“Nah,” Harley said, and decided against bringing up her strange comments. “Just talked about classes. And you.”

“Ready to eat, guys?” The food was laid out on the table and the three of them sat around it. 

“For sure,” Peter said, and Harley voiced his agreement.

“Well, before we dig in, I think it’s customary at these events to say what we’re thankful for, or whatever,” May said wryly, and Harley could see where Peter got some of his humor from.

Peter hummed thoughtfully. “I’m thankful that I’m able to gather with the people I care about the most today.”

May nodded. “I think I have to be thankful for takeout restaurants for saving my ass every year. And a warm home. Harley?”

Harley stilled, mouth momentarily ceasing to work. “I’m thankful that… uh.” He looked over a Peter, who was staring at him with adoring eyes. “I’m grateful for the roommate fiasco that put us together. I’m thankful that you invited me to your home for Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for you, Peter Parker.”

Peter ducked his head, blushing. His hand found Harley’s under the table and he squeezed it tightly without saying anything.

They left May’s that evening with full bellies and warm hearts. As they stepped into the cool night air, their breaths became visible, exhaling from their mouths and mingling in the night sky. Peter kissed Harley hard as soon as the leftovers were stored in their mini-fridge, and Harley steered him toward his bed with a smile on his lips. 

A few days later, Kir called him into work. Peter had already left for classes and work earlier that day, and it was a Tuesday, so that meant that typically Peter wouldn’t be back until very, very late into the night. Harley had tried to talk to him about that before, but that simply led into petty arguments about work schedules and times that always lead nowhere, so both Harley and Peter had learned to not bother bringing it up. Plus, today might turn out to be intriguing since Kir had a suspicion that today would be the day that a certain web-slinging man would show up.

Spider-Man had been sighted at various warehouses around the area, so much so that Harley had been given three different warehouse addresses to show up in at different times. He could tell that he still wasn’t fully trusted by the people there and whoever they worked for, as they still talked in hushed tones and looked at him with furtive stares when they thought he wasn’t looking. So he pushed, tried to get in conversations, overhear things about heists and projects that he probably wasn’t supposed to know, but heard anyway. 

He still had no clue who was working for. Anyone around him only ever referred to their employer as “The Boss”, even when Harley was eavesdropping. He needled Kir often, trying to get her to open up, but she would shut it down quick, repeating once again that he’d find out when it was time for him to find out.

That was beside the point because as Harley strolled into work, Kir met him immediately with that same tight, bright grin she always gave Harley. “Hey, Ti! You’re almost done with your part of the suit, right?”

“Yeah.” Harley made sure the gray fabric was tight around the bottom half of his face and that his hood was over his head. He was grateful for the chilly air in New York now, as it meant that he wasn’t sweltering in a hoodie every time he entered work. 

“Good, because Boss wants it all ready to go by the end of this month. He’s having someone else assemble it, though. You’re off the hook after this part.”

Harley breathed a sigh of relief. Building the mask of the suit was an extremely difficult task, and left him with more echoes of an earlier time than he’d care to admit. But with luck, it would be done by the end of today, and Harley could go back to his other projects. He walked to his workstation in the back and took note of the silence. “What, is everyone busy today?”

Kir looked around nervously as Harley took a seat as his workbench. “Yeah, they’re busy on transport. We gotta leave a trace in here so he’ll still show up, but this is the only warehouse he hasn’t tapped so far.”

Harley sighed. “Y’know, this guy is really starting to bug me. Just shows up, unannounced, in our space, for what? Trying to make arrests that he can’t prove? That he can’t keep under control?”

“It’s what they do.” Kir shrugged, but her shoulders held a line of tension to it. “Superheroes, so-called vigilantes. They do whatever they want, regardless of the consequences. They don’t care who gets hurt as long as they serve their idea of justice. It’s fucking twisted.”

Harley wasn’t sure whether he agreed with her completely on that, but he had also learned that it was best to just let Kir spew instead of trying to argue his opinion. So he hummed agreeably and continued to tinker at the malfunctioning tangle of wires that was the back panel. It was nice and silent for a few minutes until Kir huffed, leaning against the side of Harley’s workbench. “Here he comes. Just walking through the front door like he owns the fucking place.”

Harley’s head jerked up, and yep, there he was, the red-and-blue web-slinger. He walked through the door nonchalantly, like there was nothing strange about the situation. “Well, this is my last stop,” Spider-Man said, his voice distorted slightly; Harley could tell from the slight buzzing. “I know you’re hiding Chitauri cores in here, you two.”

“Search the place,” Kir said, spreading her arms. “I may as well give you permission since you’re going to do what you want regardless of what I say.”

“I’ve been tracking traces of Chitauri material throughout the city. Your warehouse held the largest stock until just a few hours ago when it all suddenly disappeared. Care to give me an explanation for that?”

“What’s a Chitauri core?” Kir asked innocently, tilting her head. “Maybe you should refresh your scanners.”

Spider-Man was silent, then he clutched his masked head with both hands. “Dammit.”

Harley shot a smug look a Kir. The manual disruptor field had been his idea, active from the moment Spider-Man entered the building. Any time he tried to use or update his tech, it would freeze and do its best to disrupt all other tech.

“What the hell-” his voice distorter was giving out, Harley noticed with glee. It dipped in and out, raising and lowering the pitch of his voice at random. “What the hell did you two do?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harley said. “We’re just two lonely mechanics in here. Nothing for you to worry about.” The material embedded in the doorways that were causing the interference was too small to be picked up by most scanners, especially ones that were dealing with difficulties.

Spider-Man sighed. “Want to give me a clue where to go next so I can keep on this wild goose chase.”

“Well, that’s the first correct thing you’ve said today,” Kir leaned forward. “It’s going to continue to be a wild goose chase because there’s nothing here. There is nothing here for you.”

Spider-Man shook his head. “I recognize you two from Mr.- from Tony Stark’s warehouse. I could have you arrested for theft.”

“With what proof?” Harley shot back.

“I don’t need  _ proof _ ,” Spider-Man said, voice growing low.

Kir hooted a laugh. “There he goes. Didn’t I tell you, Titanium? Heroes like him don’t need to play by the rules. Which works out for us, actually, because…” she lifted her chin. “Go ahead. Arrest us. Call the police. That worked out well for you last time, didn’t it?”

Spider-Man’s lenses blinked once. Twice. “I’ll be coming back here,” he said, and he sounded extremely frustrated.

“Take your time!” Harley called out after him in a snide, mocking tone. Spider-Man’s head turned back momentarily, pausing in the doorframe. Harley fought not to shrink back as the lenses twisted and shrunk, scrutinizing him. Eventually, the man shook his head and made a disgusted noise. There was the sound of clicking, and a frustrated growl as the normal thwipping noise that accompanied the webs failed to sound. 

Harley lost his composure a few minutes later, and soon both him and Kir were cracking up, banging their fists against the table as they tried to compose themselves. On the table, Kir’s phone buzzed. She picked it up and listened to someone talk on the other end of the line for a minute, before exclaiming “Fucking finally.” and hanging up.

“What is it?” Harley asked, snapping the panel of the head shut. It would take a few more diagnostic tests before he could determine if it was ready, but it wouldn’t be long.

“Clear your schedule for tomorrow, Ti.” Kir’s eyes were gleaming. “The plan is finally coming together, and we’ve got a meeting tomorrow night.”

Harley smiled. “Fucking finally,” he agreed.

He ended up having to cancel having a planned study date with Peter for that night, and Harley knew that it would affect his calc grade, but not by that much. Instead of the usual coffee shop and copious amounts of lattes, Harley stuck his hands in his pockets and blinked his eyes at the stinging salty air. Waves lapped up against the docks, not high enough to reach his feet, but the spray was wetting the hems of his jeans.

“You’re with us, right?” Kir stood next to him, hands buried equally deep in her jacket pockets. There was a large yacht tied up on the dock, and they were waiting for the doors to open. “‘Till it’s finished.”

Harley nodded solemnly. “‘Till it’s finished. We’re finally going to destroy his stupid empire and bring him down with it.”

“Mm. And you’re going to play a big part in it, kid.”

“Me?”

“We picked you out for a reason. We wouldn’t have contacted you unless we thought you’d be useful.” The ramp for the yacht opened, and the two began moving toward it, following the small crowd of people.

“Haven’t I been useful already?”

“In a sense.” Kir shot a smile at Harley, and her eyes glimmered in amusement like there was a joke that Harley didn’t understand. “But this is where it gets good.”

Harley didn’t understand her cryptic words, because as the door shut behind them and the yacht started moving, he was hit with a wave of nausea as the ground underneath him began to wobble.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Kir grabbed his arm. “You better not throw up. We need you down here. It’s more stable, anyway.” She pulled him down steps, past groups of men drinking, shouting, and gambling. As soon as they got below deck Harley felt a little better, though his stomach still churned with nausea and anxiety. They entered a low-lit room with a round table at the center of it. Several men were already crowded around it, some in chairs, some standing. Kir and Harley pulled up two more chairs, and after a few minutes of general talking in which Harley stayed silent, someone put a black burner phone in the center of the table. 

_ “Is everyone here?”  _ The disembodied voice from the phone was nasal and low.

“Yeah, boss. They’re all here.”

_ “Good. So we can finally begin. Augustus?” _

The man who had just spoken before began to speak, gesticulating with his hands as he did so. “Listen. We all know that Spider-Man has been a thorn in our side these past few weeks, but we can’t focus on him. He’s secondary, Stark is the main target. We take him out, we shake the foundation of the Avengers. Their money, their prowess, and everything they stand for. Stark’s just a man, and every man has a weakness.” 

_ “And for this particular man, that weakness is the people around him,”  _ the voice scoffed.  _ “Tony Stark has allowed himself to become too attached to certain people in his life.” _

“Now, James Rhodes rarely leaves the tower unless it’s with the military, and his wife is too protected.” Augustus made a clicking noise with his tongue. “However, there’s one person in Stark’s life who’s not powered, and not under very much protection at all. The plan is to kidnap him and lure Tony out here, where Spider-Man can’t follow us and where we can dump Tony’s body.”

“So, who’s the guy?” Harley asked though truth be told he was more concerned about the “body” part. He hadn’t thought that they were going to kill him. Harley just wanted a little revenge.

Augustus looked at him, and his hair bounced as he shook with contained laughter. “See for yourself, Harley Keener. This is where you play your part, after all.”

The voice on the phone chuckled lowly, and the blood drained out of Harley’s face faster than he thought was possible. “H-How do you know my name?”

“Oh, Harley, do you really think we’re that unobservant?” His voice was mocking, condescending. “You think we haven’t know who you were since the moment you contacted us for the first time? You can take off that sorry excuse for a mask, now. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Kir yanked down the fabric before he could say anything, and settled around his neck. “Titanium was a fucking stupid moniker, anyways,” she said, and Harley the only time Harley had felt a feeling betrayal on this level was several years ago.

He took a few shaky breaths, trying to slow his increasing heartbeat. This was fine. It was fine that they knew his name. He could deal with that.

“Right! The target.”

Then Augustus flipped over several pictures of Peter Parker, and Harley had to clench his jaw to keep from throwing up right there.

It didn’t work. He jumped up from the table and vomited into a trash bag that was full of empty beer bottles and cans.

“You little shit!” the hand flew at his head faster than he could react, and Harley gasped as he was struck to the side, and he fell on his knees, still coughing up vomit and bile. Blood dripped onto the floor in a steady, slow stream, mixing with the putrid liquid below him. 

“Tony Stark’s personal intern, Peter Parker,” Augustus carried on as if nothing had happened, not even sparing a glance at Harley’s kneeling form. “No known powers, just a kid straight out of high school that Tony’s had as an intern since he was fifteen. It’s no secret that he treats the kid like a son, and he actually attends the same college as our very own Harley Keener. Isn’t that lucky? Look, they even know each other.”

Harley grasped the edge of the table and pulled himself back into a chair just as Augustus swept aside some photos to reveal photos of himself, standing in a junkyard next to Peter. Harley recognized the shirt Peter was wearing and knew it was from the day they had walked around New York. The first night Harley had kissed him.

Tears were gathering at the corner of Harley’s eyes, but he pinched the inside of his arm until he got his breathing under control.

“So, here’s the dealio, Harley. We’ve already got a good idea of Parker’s schedule, but we need to know whatever information you know about him.”

“And if I don’t tell you anything? There’s gotta be somebody else you can kidnap, right?”

“You refuse to help us out, we’ll kill you,” Augustus said simply, with the confidence of a man who would not hesitate to shoot.

“But- but you need me!” Harley said, panic racing up and down his spine in sharp twinges. “You said that I was needed for this plan.”

_ “That doesn’t mean we don’t have other plans. Your life is not valued more than anyone else in the room,”  _ the disembodied voice snarled.

“Why does it have to be him?” Harley argued. “There’s gotta be someone else, he can’t be that important-”

_ “Silence.”  _ The voice boomed, startling everyone around the table. 

“You said you were with us.” Kir’s hand was gripping his arm,  _ hard, _ and Harley winced as fingernail dug into his skin. “You said until it’s finished. This is the end of it, Harley. We do this, and Tony Stark will never breathe again.”

“We’re killing him?” Harley couldn’t keep himself from speaking. The others around the table roared with laughter, and humiliation and shame took root in Harley’s chest.

“God, you really are innocent. What did you think this was, we were going to rough him up and let him go? This isn’t playtime, Harley, this is the real fucking deal. We all have a bone to pick with Stark. That’s why the boss is sponsoring our team, that’s why we are here in the first place. If you’re too stupid to understand that, maybe we should put a bullet between your eyes right now.” Kir had never sounded so cold, so absolutely heartless when she spoke to Harley and it wrenched at his gut, and he thought he might throw up again.

“N-no, I’ll do it. Please, just… don’t kill me.”

“Please don’t kill me!” Augustus mocked in a whining tone, and Harley flinched. “The boat is nearly back at the docks,” he continued in his normal voice. “We’ll give you the equipment tomorrow, and tell you the timeline. Don’t stress about it, we’ve got it under control. And Harley, if you even think about telling Parker about this, we’ll put a bullet in your head before you can take another breath. That’s a promise.”

He didn’t sound like he was bluffing, and Harley swallowed dryly. “O-okay,” he said, and he cursed himself for letting his voice tremble. 

“Good. Glad to see we’re all on the same page,” Augustus said brightly, but his hand didn’t move from where it was lightly placed on the gun. “We are on the same page, right?”

“Yep. Yeah. For sure.” Harley couldn’t stop looking at the gun, couldn’t stop the invasive images and thoughts of what it would feel like to be shot. The boat rocked slightly as it came to a stop. “...Can I go now?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just remember our little agreement, hm?”

Harley couldn’t get out of there fast enough. His lungs burned as he raced up the steps and down the boat ramp, his eyes blurred with panic and tears as he struggled to take a single breath.

“Harley!” Kir had caught up to him, grabbing at his wrist in an effort to slow him down. Harley wrenched his arm away, stumbling back and nearly falling off the wooden docks.

“Don’t touch me!” he roared. “You have no fucking right after- what the hell was that?”

“It was the plan,” she hissed. “You knew this was coming. You knew we were planning something.”

“I never expected this!” He yelled. “I should have known about it from the beginning. You should have fucking told me.”

“What difference does it make?” Kir asked. “You wouldn’t have wanted to go through with it if you knew beforehand, and we still would have made you do it anyway, because you’re part of this now, whether you like it or not.”

Harley ground his teeth. “The whole reason I came to you in the first place was because Tony Stark betrayed me years ago. Careful that you don’t fall along those same lines, sweetheart.” He pushed all his anger and hurt into his words and they flew from his mouth in a venomous tone; Kir flinched back like he had struck her in the face. “I’m going home. I’ll be back tomorrow, but don’t fucking text me. Have someone else do it. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Kir let him go in stunned silence. Harley put his hands in his pockets and began walking down the streets of New York as soft snowflakes began to drift from the sky. He got in the back of a cab, and it was only when they were on their way that Harley allowed the tears to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... don't kill me?  
> tumblr: @the-end-of-endgame  
> I'll answer your comments, but you won't be getting any spoilers from me, friend ;)  
> Tune in on Monday, June 10, where's we're back to Peter's point of view, and he doesn't know jack shit!


	10. Chapter Nine / Late Night, No Text

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's waiting for Harley to get back, then he's waiting for him to tell him the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I finally know how many chapters it is thank gOD   
> And we're quite close to the end, but we're not there yet!   
> Thank you all for your lovely comments and kind support it means so so much to me. Love you all <3

The calculus book slammed shut with a thud, and Peter felt like his brains were melting.

The last dregs of his coffee were still swirling slightly at the bottom of his mug, so Peter picked up the mug and swallowed the last sip, twisting his face slightly as the bitter grounds coated his throat.

He looked to Harley, who was sure to make a crack at his expression, but the chair across him was empty. Right. Harley had a meeting tonight. For work.

Peter wasn’t sure what mechanic job required meetings that started at eight in the evening, and he couldn’t lie to himself and say he wasn’t a little bit suspicious.

He pushed the thought out of his mind as soon as it entered. He trusted Harley. They trusted each other, and Peter knew that their trust was strong, a firm, potentially unbreakable bond that thrummed between them consistently.

It didn’t mean he didn’t miss his boyfriend, though.

Peter began packing up his things as the baristas began their nighttime cleaning routine, picking up chairs and putting them on tables as another worker grabbed a broom. A woman swept by with a tray of used mugs, and Peter caught her attention to dispose of his mug and crumb-crusted plate as well. He slipped his laptop into the back pocket, his notebook, his textbook.

He tried to convince himself that studying alone was a good thing. He had probably gotten more stuff done anyhow, since studying with Harley seemed to slowly delve into talking and kissing, no matter how hard they tried to focus. That was the whole reason they had banned the dorm room as a “study date” place because they tended to switch locations very quickly. Coffee shops and libraries were a little more manageable, but Peter could still vividly remember Harley’s hips pressing up against him in the locked bathroom stall, a wicked smile on his lips as he covered Peter’s mouth with one hand while the other slipped in the space between his pants and his skin. His lips pressing sharp, biting kisses in a line down Peter’s jaw and neck and collarbone in that way he did what made Peter’s hips twitch against Harley’s hand.

Peter exhaled heavily, hoping the flush on his cheeks wasn’t visible to the baristas working and cleaning around him. He waved a hurried goodbye to them as he left the shop, his pace increasing ever so slightly as he entered the campus, as he jogged up the steps, as he quickly and easily opened the door that gave Harley so much trouble. 

The room was as empty and bare as it had been when Peter had left it earlier today, no sign that Harley had even been back yet this evening. Peter sighed, setting his stuff down and sprawling on his bed. It was nearly ten, which really wasn’t that late but it  _ was  _ late for a meeting, and Peter’s mind couldn’t stop wandering. He had figured Harley would have been back by now, but he hadn’t received so much as a text from him. 

Peter tried to distract himself while he waited both for Harley to come back and for the last of the caffeine to fade from his system. He took a shower, he cleaned his side of the room even though it was mostly Harley’s stuff on the floor over there, he pulled out his notebook full of web fluid equations and suit specs he hadn’t brought up to Mr. Stark yet. When he looked at his phone, only twenty minutes had passed and the lock screen shone free of any notifications. Just his picture of New York from on top of the Empire State building. He could see the Avengers Tower in the background, and he couldn’t help but smile fondly.

As time rolled over past 10:30, Peter found himself stuck in a balancing act of anger and worry. He sent Harley a quick text, just a question of when he was going to be back. He clenched his fist as he saw the “read” icon pop up on the screen with no reply. Peter clenched his teeth and tried not to be angry, he really tried. But Harley didn’t reply, and Peter’s breaths were growing uneven and quick with worry and fear and exasperation, and he just wanted, he  _ needed  _ to know where Harley was.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, but Peter only jumped up when he heard keys jingling in the lock. He met Harley halfway, the door swinging open just as Peter was reaching for the door handle.

“Hey, man, where have you been? It’s nearly eleven and you haven’t texted me at all.” Peter did his best to contain his annoyance, but he could feel the exasperation in his tone as he spoke, sharp and biting. 

Harley didn’t say anything, just let out a small choked gasp. It was only then, in the backlit fluorescent lighting in the hallway, that Peter noticed the redness around Harley’s eyes, his staggering movements, and dried blood on the side of his head. “Hey,” Peter said, softer this time, earlier annoyance forgotten. “Hey, Harley, what happened?” He reached for Harley just as he shut the door behind him, and, for a brief moment, he held him silently in his arms. Harley’s hands were ice-cold as they reflexively slipped around Peter’s waist, and Peter swore there was actually ice on the tip of Harley’s nose where it was pressing against the hem of his t-shirt at his neck. Even his breath was cool, small puffs of cold air against his neck that sent uncomfortable shivers down Peter’s spine, to the point that he was pretty sure it was setting his spider-sense off. 

Then Harley pulled back, so suddenly and without warning that both boys stumbled back a few steps. It was dark, but Peter could still see tears brimming in Harley’s eyes, he could see an intensely fearful look lingering within him that he didn’t know how to decipher. Neither one of them spoke, and Peter listened to Harley take ragged, uneven breaths for a minute more before Harley turned and headed toward the bathroom. 

“Harley, please talk to me” Peter chased after him, hand moving faster than Harley could possibly dodge to grab his shoulder. Harley twisted away from him and slipped into the bathroom, and Peter heard the click of the lock as the door closed on his face.

“Harley!” Peter said, frustration rising up within him again. “Harley, I need to know what’s going on.”

“No, you don’t!” Harley snarled, though his voice trembled. “I can’t talk about it right now.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Peter asked. Then, “Harley, are you in danger?”

Silence.

“Harley, if there are people after you, I can help you. I just need you to talk to me about it-”

“Peter, I  _ can’t _ -” The rough sobbing that interlaced Harley’s words squeezed Peter’s heart like a vice. “Please, please stop talking about it, god,  _ fuck _ .”

Peter took a deep breath. “Harley, I can’t just drop this. You’re- god, you’re injured, and you’re crying, and I can’t just let this go!”

“You have to.” The door was open, and Harley pushed past him into the center of the room. Peter followed him, grabbing his wrist and pausing both of them in front of the window. “You need to drop this Peter.” He tried to disguise it, but Peter could catch Harley’s eyes flickering out at the window, far across the street. Peter spared a minute to look out, but whatever was out there was shrouded in shadows and too far away, even for his enhanced vision. 

“Fine, I’ll drop it. But you were out for so long, and you didn’t even send a text! Your meeting couldn’t have possibly taken that long.”

“You said you’d drop it!”

“This is a different issue! I’m just asking for some communication, Harley, that’s all.”

“You want to talk about communication? I’m not the only one who is gone half the night for work. You can’t blame me for this when you do the exact same fuckin’ thing.”

Peter’s face paled. “No. That’s different.”

“How?”

“I text you! I let you know when I’m going to be working late.”

“Well, I told you I had a meeting tonight. Isn’t that good enough?”

“It was fine until you disappeared for nearly three hours! Seriously, Harley, what type of mechanic’s place have work meetings so late at night? That’s not a normal thing people do, and that’s why I’m worried about you!”

“Stop it! Stop being so fucking worried about me all the time! Jesus!” Harley’s voice rose even louder, and his fists at his side were clenched so hard that they were shaking. “I’m fine, I really am, I just-” he sucked in a deep breath, and Peter listened to his frantic heartbeat slowly calm down. “I just ran into some muggers on my way back. And I got lost. That’s why I was late.”

It was a lie, it was the most blatant lie Peter had ever heard Harley tell but Harley’s eyes were fragile and glassy with unshed tears but still defiant, and Peter knew that pressing him further would only lead to a bigger disaster. “Okay,” he relented. “Okay. Can we take care of your head now? It looks pretty nasty.”

The tense atmosphere doesn’t dissipate. In fact, it only grew stronger, to the point that Peter felt nearly strangled by it. Harley nodded wordlessly and followed Peter back to the bathroom. Harley sat on the cover of the toilet while Peter pulled out their first aid kit and a washcloth. He dampened the dark blue cloth and began gently wiping at the side of Harley’s face, slowly and methodically cleaning the dried blood off his face and the side of his head. Harley turned his head pliantly as Peter pushed back damp blond hair to look at the wound. 

“It doesn’t look too bad. Just a cut. What-” Peter bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from asking any questions. “It’s going to be okay,” he reassured applied antibiotic cream to the wound.

Harley’s fingers curled underneath the toilet seat, squeezing the porcelain so hard his knuckles turned white. His lips pressed into a firm, thin line, and he looked down at the ground. Peter sighed quietly as he put the cap to the medicine back on and stowed it away. His hand lingered in Harley’s hair for a moment, fingers running softly through his golden locks. Harley’s head fell forward, resting on Peter’s stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Harley whispered at a level imperceptible to anyone except Peter. Peter tried not to react, and continued to gently comb out the tangles and loops in Harley’s head. He only got a few tangles out before Harley pulled his head back and stood up, forcing Peter to take a few steps away from Harley. His hip clipped the counter, and he held in a wince. Harley stepped out of the bathroom, and after a minute Peter followed him.

Harley was changing when Peter stepped back into their main room, yanking sweatpants up his hips. He turned sharply when he noticed Peter standing there, and Peter watched his eyes take on that same fear that had made a home there before. Peter took a cautious step toward him, and Harley took one back. Fear turned to resolution as Harley set his shoulders. “I’m going to bed,” he said, and Peter tried not to take it personally when he took his pillow back from Peter’s bed.

“Okay,” Peter said, his voice trembling. 

Harley set the pillow down on his own bed. “Can you get the lights?”

“Yeah.” Peter walked to the light switch, and his hand felt like stone as he raised it to the panel. His fingers just brushed the switch when suddenly he heard quick footsteps and suddenly Harley was pressed against his side, arms wrapping around his side tightly. Peter turned to face him and gasped slightly as Harley’s lips pressed against his ever-so-softly, barely any pressure at all. Peter’s hands rose up to cup Harley’s face and shivered as he felt a cool wetness spill over his thumbs. Harley’s lips hardly moved as they touched one soft kiss after another to Peter’s lips, and he was trembling underneath Peter’s hands, and it was scaring the hell out of him.

“Harley-” Peter choked out, tearing himself away. “Harley, you can’t just do stuff like this without- it’s not fair to me, Harley, you’re really scaring me.”

Harley reached up with one hand and pulled his thumb gently along Peter’s cheekbone, collecting the tears that had spilled there without Peter noticing. His face was sorrowful, and tears traced his cheeks like twin rivers. “God, Peter, I’m so sorry. I’m going to bed now. I-” his face tightened, and instead of saying more, he flicked off the lights himself. Peter closed his eyes at the sudden darkness and felt once more the press of soft lips, but he did his best to convince himself it was only a phantom kiss. When he opened them, Harley was crossing the room to his bed, and Peter slipped into his own moments later.

It was a long night, because no matter how much Peter covered his ears with his pillow or tried to tune it out with earbuds, it was impossible to ignore the quiet, shaky sobs that sounded from the other side of the room. 

_______

When Peter opened his eyes, sunlight was streaming brightly through the window. He immediately looked across the room and saw Harley still sleeping, snoring lightly. Peter exhaled, the previous night still a fresh scar in his chest. He briefly entertained the idea of waking Harley up, but ultimately decided against it. His limbs were shaky, full of anxious energy that he couldn’t do anything within the room. So he changed his clothes and slipped out of the room, hurrying towards the building where his suit was. A few minutes later, Peter was zipping among the buildings of New York. He kept eyes and ears out for trouble, although his focus was barely there. He mostly used the time to swing as high as he could and fall as fast as he could before snapping back up into the air. His lungs burned and his arms pounded a steady heartbeat as he pulled himself over top a nondescript building and swung between two streets.

He hadn’t really been paying attention to where he was going, but soon Peter found himself landing lightly on top of the Avengers Tower, hands and feet gripping tight to the spire. He found his spot on the roof where he knew there were no cameras, a small hidden spot that he used for times like now.

He texted Ned and MJ then, pulling out his phone and quickly detailing the situation to them. He took off his mask and breathed in the thinner air. Within minutes, he was getting a call from both of them.

“Hey, Peter,” Ned said. He was sitting at his desk, and from where the phone was propped up Peter could see paper and pens around him.

“Is this a bad time?” he asked. “‘Cause I can call back when you’re not doing stuff.”

“I’m sure even Ned will agree that you’re more important than homework,” MJ said. She was in her room, Peter recognized the wall behind her from previous calls. “So is Harley back to being a little dick then, or what?”

“I… I don’t know,” Peter confessed. “He still lied to me. He definitely lied. And he was out really late. Am I going nuts, or…”

“Peter.” MJ stared straight at him. “Think about the last few months. Think about Harley’s normal behavior. Now, I haven’t actually met the guy, but from what you’ve told us, he seems just as attached to you as you are to him. Almost sickeningly so.”

“Thanks, MJ,” Peter said wryly.

“What I mean is, do you really think it seems likely that Harley would be cheating on you? Aside from this, has there been anything at all to suggest that he would do something like this?”

“And didn’t you say that he had a cut in his head?” Ned piped up. “If he was out with someone else, that wouldn’t be a situation where he would be getting hurt.”

“That’s true,” Peter hesitated, tugging at his suit in the gap between skin and fabric. “It’s just… he was acting so strange last night. I really think that he’s in trouble, but he just won’t talk to me about it. He just turned it around on me and we fought about it”

“Maybe he needs space?” Ned suggested. “What did you do last time you had a fight?”

Peter tipped his head back. The last time they had had any sort of argument was over keeping their dirty clothes off the floor because while both of them wanted to keep the room clean, neither of them actually wanted to do it.

“I… I gave him some space, and then we figured out a plan,” he said at last. “Maybe you’re right Ned. This might be a bigger issue than the room, though”

“Well, the least you can do is try,” Ned reasoned. “I’m sure that if you go back there this afternoon after both of you blow some steam off, everything will be just fine.”

Peter exhaled. “Yeah, probably. I’ll do that, yeah.”

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” MJ said in a deadpan tone.

“Thanks, guys.” Peter smiled gratefully. “You have no idea how much you’ve just helped.”

“Yeah, yeah.” MJ waved at him flippantly. “Go get your man back.”

Peter was left smiling as they ended the call. He stayed up there for a little bit, breathing in the cool air. The sun passed overhead, and soon Peter’s stomach was growling. He didn’t really want to go back and get his wallet, so he put his mask back on momentarily as he swung into the tower. He took it back off after walking into the kitchen and began making himself a sandwich.

Tony walked into the kitchen. “Hey, kid. You’re not usually here today.”

“Yeah,” Peter set the mustard back down and placed the bread on top of his sandwich. “I was in the area and I didn’t really want to have to go buy lunch.”

“Good idea. Y’know, you entering actually reminded me that I have to eat lunch.”

“What would you do without me,” Peter said sarcastically.

“Waste away. Starve. You and Pep keep me on track, you really do.” Tony began making his own sandwich. “So, what’s up?”

“What do you mean?” Peter asked after swallowing a bite of the sandwich.

“I mean, I saw you swing in about an hour ago, then you disappeared, and now you’re here again.”

Peter sighed. “I had to talk to Ned and MJ about a few things.”

“Ah,” Tony nodded. “Boyfriend troubles?”

“H-How’d you know?” Peter sputtered.

“You look… forlorn, I think.” Tony squinted at him over his sandwich as he carried it to the table. “Trouble in paradise?”

Peter shook his head. “Harley’s just acting really weird. I don’t know what’s up with him, but Ned had some good advice. I’m gonna go back this afternoon and see if we’ve both cooled down at all.” He looked up at Tony just in time to see the color drain from his face and the plate slip from his hands.

“Shit, shit.” Tony immediately knelt to the ground, and Peter left his sandwich on the table to walk around the table and help pick up the shards of ceramic plate. When Tony had dumped the pieces in the garbage, he turned back to Peter. “Sorry, I just… did you say Harley?”

“Shoot, did I?” Peter scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry, forget you heard that. He really did not want you to know his name. He made me promise, damn it.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll forget it.” Tony had a faraway look on his face that Peter knew meant that he had absolutely not dropped it, and he cursed himself for letting the name slip. But he figured it was fine. There couldn’t be any harm in it. Plus, he was still kind of mad at Harley.

“So, what caused that reaction, then?”

Tony blew air through his teeth. “I knew a kid, years ago. Back when everyone thought I was dead, he helped me, uh, recover, I guess. I lost contact with him, though. I still send him letters and I try to call him, but I haven’t heard anything from him in years.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “He’s probably forgotten all about me by now. Probably for the better, anyway.”

“Maybe you should try reaching out to him again,” Peter said. “Who knows? Maybe now that he’s a teenager, he’ll have social media or something.”

“Maybe.” Tony was staring at him pensively. “You would like him, I think. He’s a good kid. A smart kid.”

Peter swallowed the last bit of his sandwich. “Well, I’ll meet your Harley after I fix whatever’s going on with mine. Deal?”

Tony hummed absently. “I wonder… Hm. Maybe…” He picked up his sandwich. “Sorry to cut this lunch date short, but I need to go and…” he trailed off, lost in his own words.

“I’m done anyways,” Peter said quickly. “Thanks for the sandwich, Mr. Stark!” Peter put his plate in the sink and slipped his mask back on. The clock was moving towards early afternoon, and Peter was feeling more in the mood now. He wasn’t quite ready to go back to the dorm, but he could do some real patrolling. 

He was swinging through New York city, buzzing with adrenaline after stopping a jewelry store robbery when memories of last night hit him like a truck. He suddenly remembered Harley looking out the window like he was afraid someone was watching him. Peter hooked a web on a building and took a sharp right turn, heading toward the college. He found the outside of the building where his window was, and now that it was daylight and he was higher up Peter could see the tops of buildings much easier. Some were business buildings, some were too low to the ground to be anything threatening, but there was a nondescript building two blocks away from the college that Peter thought was worth checking out. He swung over to it quickly, clinging to the side of the building next door to scope out the building.

There weren’t any people on it, which Peter was grateful for. However, immediately after that, Peter noticed a long gun, set up on a stand, pointing directly toward the college.

Peter landed on the roof silently, quickly walking over to the gun. He looked through the scope, and it was just as he had feared. 

The barrel of the rifle was pointed directly into their dorm room. Peter couldn’t see Harley in the open window, but he knew that it wouldn’t take much for the person behind the gun to shift the gun ever so slightly and fire.

Peter jerked back, shaking. He grabbed the gun from the stand and set it down on the ground. After a moment, he grabbed the barrel of the gun and yanked it up, breaking it.

Harley was in danger. Serious, life-threatening danger and someone was trying to kill him.

A spike of alarm went down Peter’s spine at the sound of someone opening the roof door. He leaped over the side of the building just as a loud “Hey!” was yelled. Peter perched on the side of the building, flattening himself against it. The man above started talking, and Peter inched up the building to hear him better.

“... Yeah, that damn spider-freak wrecked the gun.” A long, annoyed sigh, a gruff and unfamiliar voice. “No, I don’t know how long it’ll take. Wait for my signal before you go up. Yeah, yeah, I’m on my way. Stop harassing me, Kir!”

Peter froze.  _ Kir _ . That was the same girl from Mr. Stark’s warehouse, the one from the warehouse he had visited the other week with that other dude… Ti, or something strange like that. Kir was one of the people after Harley, and Peter needed to get to him first before she could.

Peter stripped off his suit as soon as he could, changing back into his normal clothes. Then he took off in a run down the street, back into the dorm. He knew he couldn’t get in as Spider-Man (he’d tried once when he forgot his backpack, they banned him for being a predator), but his Iron Spider suit was still in the dorm, and if anything warranted an emergency, it was to protect Harley. 

He stumbled to a stop as he entered the campus, walking toward the dorms as nonchalantly as he could. He looked around as he walked down the leaf-littered path, sticking his hands in his pockets to protect them from the cold.

A small group of men caught his eye, brought to his attention by a telltale prickling on his arms. They were middle-aged, standing against a wall close to the dorm rooms. Peter didn’t know everyone who attended NYU, but something told him these men weren’t students.

One of the men turned, and Peter caught his eye. The man’s eyes narrowed, and he turned to mutter something to his friend. 

The buzzing in his arms snapped up to his head, and Peter clenched his jaw from the sudden onrush of anxiety consuming him. Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong. 

He walked a little faster, walking across the grass to avoid going anywhere near the group of men. At one point one of them turned and started walking, but was pulled back by his friend. Peter pinched the skin between his thumb and pointer finger, trying to subdue the buzzing, but nothing seemed to work. So he moved a little faster, flashing his student ID to the monitor and running down the hall, up the stairs, to their dorm room. His head felt like it was filled with static, and it was a record playing on a loop, again and again and again.

_ Danger. Danger. Danger. Danger. Danger. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *chuckles* i'm in danger  
> talk to me on tumblr!! @the-end-of-endgame  
> comments / kudos fuel me and distract me from my finals which is always good, right?  
> a n y w a y s next chapter: Friday, June 14th. Here we go :)


	11. Chapter Ten / Cooperation and Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their argument, Harley wakes up.  
> Dawn of the Final Day, I guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit. holy fucking shit listen i went to bed feeling like it was christmas eve i am so so excited to share this chapter.  
> thank you all for sticking with me so far. here we go fellas.

When Harley woke up, the first thing he felt was unbridled fear.

He sat up, clutching at the sheet on his chest. His heart was beating wildly, and his hands were trembling as they tried and failed to grip the sheet. He looked across the room, but Peter was nowhere to be seen. Harley’s phone was buzzing on the floor where he had tossed it down when he changed, and he picked it up to see several text messages from an unknown number and an incoming call from the same number. Harley took a deep breath to quell the rising panic and opened the call, pressing the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“You’re running late.” Harley could immediately identify Augustus’ sickly sweet voice, and he rolled his shoulders back to shake the uncomfortable feeling that took root within him.

“I wasn’t aware that I had a timetable,” Harley sniped.

Augustus chuckled lowly and clicked his tongue. “It’d fare you well to watch your tongue, Harley Keener.”

Harley’s head snapped to face the window. “What do you want?” he said through gritted teeth.

“Touchy, touchy. You should be grateful is me and not Kir who’s calling you. Should I put her on?”

Harley’s nails were digging into his palm so hard he was worried they’d break skin. “What the fuck do you want.”

“Oh, we’re moving up the timetable. Well, we were, before your lazy ass decided to sleep in. Get down to the docks. Same place as before. You know what’ll happen if you don’t.”

Harley swallowed dryly. “Okay.”

“Within the hour, Harley, or your body will wash up in the river next week. Sound good?”

“I’ve got class in an hour,” Harley muttered as he checked the time.

“Fine,” Augustus said dismissively. “Come to the docks when you’re done.” 

“Mhm.”

“Sorry, what was that?” his voice was light and playful, but Harley didn’t miss the edge to it.

“I’ll be there when I can.”

“Sooner than later, if you please.” With a click, the line went dead. Harley dropped the phone on his bed and flopped back on it, curling up against himself. His chest shook with unstable breaths and his whole body felt like it was trembling, vibrating head to toe in anxiety. He stayed curled up for a few minutes more until he couldn’t stand it anymore, he couldn’t stand the thoughts running over and over in his head again and again. Then Harley stood up and managed to take a short shower and change. His head still stung slightly where the shower spray brushed the wound. He pulled on a sweatshirt and pants and left the dorm, hands in his pockets and dread in his stomach. 

It was nearly impossible to concentrate in his class. He tried to focus on the concepts the professors were showing up on the board, but his mind wouldn’t stop wandering. Multiple time Harley took out his phone to see if Peter had texted him, but there was nothing. 

He took his time exiting the class, the sick feeling in his stomach growing with every minute that ticked by. He forced himself to stop by the cafeteria and grab a piece of pizza before leaving, but it did nothing to ail his aching gut. He walked through the streets and felt thousands of people stream around him, walking to and fro. Harley’s breath came in frozen puffs that floated from his mouth and disappeared into the air. There was a slight fuzziness in his head as he moved, a melancholy feeling that started to overwhelm him if he stopped moving. So he didn’t stop until he could see the ocean. 

When he reached the docks, Kir was waiting for him. Harley felt familiar anger rise in him, but the defeat he felt was too overpowering.

“Let’s go.”

“I hate you.”

“I know. But I can’t apologize for that.”

Harley squeezed his eyes shut. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Kir opened her mouth, but then shut it and motion for him to follow her. Harley followed her into a familiar boat. The rocking of the boat once again made him nauseous, but Kir grabbed his side and pulled him along. “If you throw up again, I’ll hit you.” 

Harley swallowed down nausea that was burning his esophagus.

“God, I can’t believe that they thought you’d be with us. You’re far too much of a pussy.” 

“I-”

“Don’t even bother. You were too soft from the start.” Kir paused in front of a door. “Try not to make Augustus angrier than he already is,” she said with a sly smile.

Harley tried to hide the fact that he was shivering. The door opened with a loud creak, and Harley couldn’t help but walk inside. Augustus was sitting around the table with people Harley didn’t know or recognize. Augustus turned to him, his stiff red hair hardly moving. He smiled a predatory smile at Harley as he stepped towards the table, all teeth but no emotion. “Harley. So glad you could finally be bothered to join us.”

Harley pressed his lips together, remembering Kir’s warning. 

“Here’s the plan, pipsqueak,” Augustus was addressing Harley now, the full force of his bright green eyes turned on him. Harley listened with a dry mouth as Augustus detailed the plan to him. His hands started to shake, and he grabbed the hem of his sweatshirt in order to calm himself.

“Oh, what’s the deal?” Augustus asked mockingly. “Do you not want to do this? You don’t want to help up kidnap Parker?”

Harley grit his teeth. “I find it hard to believe that I’m your only option in this plan.”

“Oh, believe me, you’re not.” The expression on Harley’s face must have been incredulous because Augustus laughed long and loud. “This is just the most fun! For me.”

“And me,” Kir said idly from where she was fiddling with her weapon. Harley took a closer look at the gun. It looked similar to something Harley remembered creating (the idea of which made his stomach turn), but it was different. Wider, with a different barrel. It glowed purple, but whatever Kir was stuffing into it was not something Harley had designed, but it disappeared into the weapon too quickly for Harley to get a good look. “Boat’s docked, by the way.”

“Put this in, now.” Augustus handed Harley a small, round item that had a wire dangling off of it. Harley put it in his ear as he had been instructed, and snaked it through his sweatshirt until it dangled off the end of his wrist. Augustus snatched it and looped the material around Harley’s wrist. It cut into his skin, and Harley bit back a hiss. 

“Now, if you take that out of your ear, we’ll know! We can hear what you’re saying, and you’ll be able to hear what we say when we need you too. There’s plenty of slack, so you should be good to go!” Augustus clasped his hands together. “Don’t you look precious.”

Harley couldn’t fight back the displeased frown that grew on his face. “I hate you.”

Quick as a snake, Augusts gripped his jaw in strong, spindly fingers. “You’re really starting to piss me off with that attitude, Harley. Would you rather I put a bullet in your head instead? It’d set us behind a few hours but it would feel so satisfying.”

“Aug,” Kir warned.

Harley grabbed Augustus’ hand and yanked his jaw away, staring at him in defiance. “I’m doing what you want. Don’t you fuckin’ touch me.”

“Don’t give me a reason to, you disrespectful piece of-”

“Augustus _. _ ” Kir’s voice was quick, urgent. She motioned to the phone at her ear, and resumed speaking to the person on the other end. “He  _ what? _ God damn it. How long will it take you to get one from the storage house?” She paused briefly. “We can’t just sit around here while Spider-Man is up our asses! Not this close. Are you on your way yet? Well then get fucking moving, asshole!” She slammed the phone down on the table, closing her eyes. “Spider-Man wrecked Marius’ fucking rifle. He’s on our tail.”

“How?” Augustus demanded. “How could he have any idea what we’re doing?” His eyes turned to Harley, who shrunk back under the force of his gaze.

“Not me,” Harley shook his head. “The last time I talked to him, we were in the warehouse. Before you threatened to kill me.”

“Hm.” Augustus stared at him for a moment more before turning back to Kir. “Then we’ll have to move up the timetable. Better get to the dorm, Harley Keener. Quickly. If you don’t, and this fails...” He squeezed Harley’s wrist, pushing the cord roughly against his skin. Harley didn’t need to be told twice. He leaped off the boat and arrived at the college within a few minutes. It took him a minute to unstick his door, but recently he had learned that there was one particular spot that would give easier than the rest. He stumbled into the room, looking around. Peter wasn’t there.

“Shit,” Harley whispered. “He’s not here.”

_ “That’s strange,” _ Augustus mused in his ear.  _ “According to his normal schedule, he doesn’t have work this afternoon. Did you…?” _

“No, I didn’t say anything, I was too fuckin’ terrified that you were gonna shoot me. Jesus, have a little faith in your threats.”

Harley could hear footsteps, quick footsteps running down the hallway. He inhaled quickly, body tensing up. “Fuck,” he whispered, dread settling in his stomach like a stone. “It’s here.”

There was no noise on the other end, but across the room the door flung open. Peter stood there, his face bright red from exertion, panting ever so slightly. “Harley!”

“P-Peter,” Harley gasped, all coherent thought and plans flying from his brain as he took him in. Peter crossed the room quickly, brushing past Harley and looking out the window, staring intently. After a moment of searching, he leaned across the desks and grabbed the windowsill, pushing the window up. Harley shivered as cold winter air rushed into their dorm room. 

“Oh thank God,” Peter said, turning back to Harley. He grabbed his wrist, the one without the chord on it. Their fingers threaded together automatically, a practiced instinct. For a moment the two of them stood silently, foreheads pressed lightly together. Harley could feel Peter’s breaths slowing ever so slightly. “You’re still here.” He pulled back. “We gotta go.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Harley asked, his words coming out more aggressive than he meant to. “Go where?”

Harley tried to ignore Peter’s flinch as he spoke. “Harley, I know that you won’t - or can’t - tell me what’s going on with you, but you’ve got to trust me. Whatever is keeping you from talking to me, they’re here now. We’ve got to go, I’ve got to- I’ve gotta protect you.”

“What?” Harley was breathless, confused, bewildered. 

“The fire escape.” The door handle rattled. “Harley, start climbing. I’m right behind you.”

“What?” Harley said again, but Peter didn’t say anything else, just grabbed the two desks pushed together and separated them, creating a small path.

“Go!” Peter said. “I’ve got to grab something.” He was staring at Harley with wide, pleading eyes, and Harley had never been able to say no to that face. He gripped the edge of the window and swung himself over, landing with a shaky, rattling thud on the fire escape.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered to himself as he began to descend. Above him, he heard could hear something splatter, something that sounded gooey and sticky. Then Peter was above him, launching himself out the window and landing on the fire escape.

“That won’t hold them for long!” Peter yelled over the rushing wind, which buffeted against Harley’s ears and battered at his skin. Augustus was screaming something in his ear, but the wind surrounded him and muffled the sound. “We’ve gotta go!” 

“Peter, what did you do?” Harley looked up at him after a few turns, but Peter only waved him on with his hands, looking increasingly more panicked with every floor they passed. Harley caught the glint of something gold shining in his hand as they descended staircase after staircase.

Harley reached the last step and stumbled forward. Peter caught up with him only a few seconds later, leaping off the last few steps to hit the ground. He grabbed Harley’s hand and pulled him along, Harley forced to break into a full run as they took off down the street, weaving through shocked crowds and passersby. 

“Peter,” Harley wheezed, a stitch growing in his side. “I can’t-” He coughed, the lack of oxygen in his lungs catching up to him.

Peter didn’t look tired in the slightest, but he slowed down slightly. “In here,” he said, pulling Harley into a shadowed alleyway. 

Harley’s feet ached tremendously as he slowed down, and he leaned against a brick wall to catch his breath. “Peter, what are you doing? How did you-”

_ I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, but this has location tracking. If you’re trying to escape, it won’t work for long.”  _ Harley flinched at Augustus’ harsh tone.

“There were men. Outside the campus and I just- I knew you were in danger, and I had to get you out of there, I have to protect you.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Harley asked, head whipping around to check the entrance of the alley. 

“It means-” Peter fisted his hands in his hair, tugging at it in frustration. “It means- God damn it, I don’t know how-”

_ “You’re doing well distracting him, Harley,”  _ the voice crooned in his ear.

“Shit,” Harley said. “Darlin’, please tell me what the  _ fuck  _ you’re talking about, because-”

“I know, we don’t have much time. I’m just-” Peter grabbed Harley’s hand again, moving to stand in front of him. “I’m scared because Harley, you’ve been the best part about my life this year and I want to- I have to do everything I can to protect you, but I’m worried it’s only going to put you in more danger.”

Harley’s question was cut off by a soft and sweet kiss that Harley melted into. It was strikingly similar to the kisses they had exchanged last night, full of sorrow and fear that Harley could taste on his lips. Peter’s hands held him around the waist steadily as the two, and Harley’s arms rose to slip around Peter’s shoulders. Peter tilted his head slightly to press a firmer kiss that sent goosebumps flaring throughout Harley’s body, then he pulled away. 

“I’m so sorry,” Peter said.

“For what?” Harley asked softly.

“You’re probably still mad at me, or whatever, but I had to do that one last time before everything happens.” Peter kicked off his shoes and threw off his jacket, so he was just standing before Harley in a t-shirt and pants.

“What are you doing? Sweetheart, it’s freezing outside.” Harley reached for him, but Peter stepped back.

“I know.” Peter gave a small, sad smile before reaching into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a small golden disk, the same item Harley had seen glinting before. He pressed it against the middle of his chest, and Harley heard a small click.

The disk melted, spreading out across Peter’s body in an instant. Harley stumbled back as Peter’s dorky science t-shirt and worried expression disappeared underneath a familiar insignia and mask.

“Fuck.” Harley. “Fuck, fuck, no you’ve got be fucking kidding me.” 

Peter -  _ Spider-Man, what the fuck  _ \- stepped toward him, his hands in the air. “Hey, it’s still me. I’m sorry, I knew this would freak you out-” his voice sounded just like it did the other two times Harley had seen him, and Harley stepped back a few more feet. “-but can we maybe freak out later? We’ve gotta- we’ve gotta go- Shit, Harley, duck!”

“Huh?” Harley, still a little dazed by the revelation before him. Peter yelped and dropped to a crouch as a purple blast flew past Harley’s shoulder and over Peter’s head. Harley flinched, stumbling to the side. He heard a click far too close to his ear, and a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

“Throw a single web, I fucking dare you.” Another click and Harley could see two different guns out of either side of his peripheral vision. Kir walked up next to him, the barrel pointed straight at his temple. “And I guarantee your webs won’t be fast enough to stop a bullet from barreling into his skull.”

“I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again,” Peter said, but his voice sounded shaky even underneath the voice modulation.

“Are you really willing to take that gamble, Peter Parker?” Kir dug the gun into the side of Harley’s head, right where his cut was, and it was all Harley could take not to cry out. He pushed his head back a little bit, but that only moved the gun on his other side to press against his neck, cutting off some airflow. He clenched his teeth at the spiking sensation penetrating the side of his head and inhaled raggedly, staring at Peter.

Peter’s shoulders stiffened. “Who’s that? I’m Spider-Man.”

“Cute. Here, I’ll give you another gamble to play. Take off your mask so we can see your pretty face, and I’ll lower my gun from his head.”

The white eyes of the suit narrowed. “You’ll both lower your guns.”

“Fine.” Kir stared back, unflinchingly. “Take off your mask now. We’re on a schedule, you know.”

Peter didn’t do anything for a moment, just stood there, staring at the three of them.

The gun jammed into Harley’s throat, and the hand on his shoulder clenched so hard that Harley wondered if the bone would break. He wheezed, tears pricking at his eyes as he fought to breathe. “Do we need to ask again?” the second man said. “Or do you need a little convincing?”

The lenses on the mask flared wide. “No, no, don’t hurt him, I’m doing it.” The mask of the suit melted back, and Peter was staring straight at Harley, wide-eyed. “Now lower the guns.”

“Sure, yeah, yeah.” Harley coughed as the pressure at his throat relinquished, doubling over. 

“Why?” Peter asked. “Why’d you need my mask off?”

Kir stepped forward and swung her other hand up, which was holding the wide gun Harley had seen earlier. “Well, I don’t know how well you can really breathe under there without your suit functioning.”

“What-” And Kir fired, the projectile from her gun expanding into a wide net that enveloped Peter in black strings. It lit up purple for a minute, then Peter was on the ground, writhing as the net crackled with energy.

“What the fuck is that?” Harley yelled. “You’re killing him!”

“Nah, it’ll shut off in a second. I brought it along just is just to destabilize his suit. Bullets rarely work on him - yours was a lucky shot, isn’t that cool?” Peter’s eyes were flashing open and shut and his mouth formed a silent cry as he curled up against himself. After a few moments, Peter stilled.

“Boss paid for that one. Got someone special to design it, too, though they used your original schematics.”

Peter’s head tilted up towards Harley, but Harley couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes.

“Oh, geez,” Peter groaned, rolling and lying on his back. “That thing is powerful, where’d you get it? It’s completely fried my system.”

“Thanks!” Kir said brightly. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind staying still, it’ll make this whole thing a whole lot easier.”

Peter coughed, hand coming to rest on his chest. “Yeah, but, you only messed up my suit.”

“So?”

Peter thrust his arms out, grabbing at pulling at the net. “I learned a long time ago that I’m able to do this with or without the suit.” The threads snapped, and Peter sprung to his feet. He dashed over to where he had shucked his hoodie and shoes and grabbed the sweater. There was a click and a whirring sound from where Peter was, and before Kir could move, her larger gun had been yanked out of her hand and tossed to the side. Peter thrust out his other hand and Harley watched a stream of webbing shoot out and connect at the center of his chest. Harley was yanked forward, out of the grip of the man behind him and away from Kir. He was flung into Peter’s chest, who covered him with one arm. Harley twisted to see a couple other men get pinned down with web after web, and watched a black car slowly roll up in front of the alley.

“Okay, um,” Peter was turning his head, and his hair kept brushing Harley’s neck. “I don’t have a lot of web fluid left,” he said quietly. “But maybe climb on my back and I can see if we can get on a roof or something.”

“I don’t know why you’re bothering with him,” Kir said. She had been webbed up, but her head was still free. “I know he’s your roommate and all, but he’s just as bad as the rest of us.”

“What?” Peter asked. “I’m trying to protect him from you guys. You’re the ones who were trying to kidnap him.”

Kir threw her head back against the wall and laughed, long and loud. The car doors opened. “Oh, no, Peter, you’ve got it backward. Harley has been working with us to help capture you.”

Peter stiffened against Harley, and Harley felt the arm around his back tighten. “Sorry, but I have a hard time believing the woman who just disabled my suit would be truthful about this stuff,” he said firmly.

Kir shrugged, which was a difficult task given the webbing around her body. “Check his ear. There’s a comm link in there. It’s in mine, too.”

Peter turned, and Harley couldn’t move as Peter brushed his hair back with his free hand. The hand fell from his head, and Harley could feel Peter inhale sharply. “No.” The other arm slipped from his back. Kir started laughing again. “Fuck, Harley, please tell me this isn’t what it looks like.” 

“I-” Harley stepped back, but he couldn’t meet Peter’s eyes, so he lowered his head. “It’s not what it looks like, I swear! I-”

“Oh, it wasn’t you who designed all the weapons we’ve been using?” Kir taunted. “It wasn’t you who shot Spider-Man at the warehouse?”

Peter flinched back. “That was you? My spider-sense didn’t go off, but I didn’t know why… I just figured it was a fluke. But…” Peter’s hand crossed his body to touch his shoulder where that injury had once been, and Harley had never felt worse than he did now as Peter looked at him with undeniable pain in his eyes. “I  _ trusted _ you, Harley.”

The car door slammed shut, and every eye was drawn to the far end of the alley.

“I forgot,” Kir said casually, a smile growing on her face. “You never really met the Boss, did you? I had him called as soon as we figured out Spider-Man was going to be around.”

“Oh no. Oh, my god, this is not good. You work for Hammerhead?” Peter shouted. “Are you kidding me?”

“I- I didn’t know, Peter, I swear.” Harley looked to Peter to see his reaction, but Peter was staring straight ahead, jaw clenched and eyes dark. Harley felt the uncomfortable feeling of guilt squirm in his gut as he turned to look at the man down the alley, and then the fear took over.

Harley was frozen, staring in shock at the imposing figure stalking towards them. The men behind him worked quickly to cut the people around him free from their webbed prisons. In two quick slices, Kir was picking webbing off her shirt and had picked up her gun again.

“Joseph Martello,” Peter hissed as the man walked forward. He paused, the shades on his face disguising his eyes. He wore a blue pinstriped suit, and around his neck was a thick golden chain with a large golden coin dangling off the end. His forehead easily took up half his face, large and protruding, with several cracks and scars running throughout. 

“Peter Parker.” Hammerhead regarded him, tilting his head slightly and peering out from over top his sunglasses. He stood at about Harley’s height, but his wide stature made Harley want to cower underneath him. “For some reason, I thought Spider-Man might be someone a little more… experienced. Not some kid on the streets”

“I was plenty experienced last time when I put you in jail,” Peter retorted.

“Hm, and we both know how long that lasted.” Hammerhead turned his head to face Harley, and Harley clenched his fists to keep from wilting underneath his gaze. “And you’re Harley Keener. The one who designed my new line of weapons. You’re pretty useless now, though, so-” Harley’s head slammed into the wall, a thick hand around his throat. Harley’s eyes bulged as his hands grabbed at the fingers around his throat, scrambling to find space to breath. He looked over at Peter, but he was just staring at the ground, breathing heavily. Hammerhead’s other hand drifted toward the gun on his hip. “Besides, Augustus has been telling me you’ve been less than cooperative in this particular plan.”

Peter’s head snapped up at the motion, and he stepped forward “Don’t you dare kill him. You want me, you deal with me.”

“Even after all he’s done to hurt you?” Hammerhead mused. “Hm. Perhaps you may be of some use after all.” He lifted Harley ever so slightly until Harley was standing on his tiptoes, staring at him for a moment. Harley wheezed, desperately inhaling the little oxygen he could.  “Jace.” One man hurried over from behind Hammerhead as he turned, bringing Harley with him. 

He released his grip on Harley’s throat and Harley collapsed, clutching at his throat as he tried to get air back into his lungs. He hardly got more than a moment of control before his arms were wrenched behind his back and he was being dragged to his feet. “Hey!” he croaked as loud as he could, twisting his shoulders to try and wriggle out of the hold. “Let me fuckin’ go!” The man’s grip on him was firm and only tightened as he struggled until it felt like his arm was about to snap in two. Harley kept his head up, looking down the alley with a pointed chin. 

Peter quickly looked down at Harley, then back to the larger man. “Let him go, Hammerhead.” 

“Why would I, when he has so much control over you?” Hammerhead lunged at him then, fist flying from the side. Peter dodged it easily, jumped back up against the wall. He crawled steadily upward as Hammerhead approached again and again with his fists until he fell back and reached for his gun. Just as he fired Peter launched himself from the wall, flipping over top his head and twisting, landing on his back. He grabbed the gun from Hammerhead’s hand with his webs, throwing it as far away as he could. A few men around Harley ducked as the gun whirled past them.

Peter began railing punches on Hammerhead, pummeling his back and neck. Hammerhead reached up and grabbed Peter’s arms, flipping him over his head and slamming him into the ground. His fist pounded into Peter again and again until Peter was able to raise an arm up and web a part of the wall, pulling himself out from under Hammerhead’s fists. He paused there briefly before throwing himself at the larger man again. 

Harley hated the growing helplessness rising within him, so he kicked a leg backward and connected with the shin of the man holding him. He briefly flinched and loosened his hold on Harley’s slightly. That was all Harley needed to yank his arms forward and away. He turned on the spot, ducking out of the way of the oncoming punch and catching the man across the jaw. The man clutched his face and stumbled back, so Harley turned again and ran towards where the larger fight was going on. 

Kir was standing off to the side, a standard pistol aimed at the two twisting and whirling fingers. Harley crept up behind her and lunged for the pistol, but Kir sidestepped him and turned. He reached for it again, attempting to use his height as an advantage to tower over her, but she ducked underneath him and knocked him back with a punch to the chest. Harley coughed and took a step backward, but only narrowed his eyes and lunged for it again.

“Final warning, Keener. Stay down,” Kir hissed, pushing her braids behind her shoulders.

“Stay down. What do you care?” Harley spat. “You’re the one who lied to me about all this in the first place.”

“I never lied. You were just too wrapped up in a little kid’s idea of revenge to take this seriously,” Kir snarled. “You could have been on our side, but if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”

“I’m getting that gun,” Harley said.

“No, you’re not.” Kir ducked out his way again, and for a brief moment, Harley thought he saw a flicker of regret in her eyes. Then she lowered the gun ever so slightly.

At first, it didn’t register. The sound was so loud it sounded muffled to Harley’s ears, and his brain wouldn’t process the connection to the sound and the blood spilling from Harley’s thigh. Then Harley choked on a scream, dropping to the ground and shoving a fist in his mouth to muffle the sounds. His ears rang from the close-quartered shot, and he stared at the ragged hole in his thigh with tears in his eyes. Blood filled up the hole and spilled over the edges, running tiny rivers of blood down his clothed leg.

Kir stared at him with cold eyes and motioned to behind Harley. Four hands grabbed him this time, dragging him back even though Harley was kneeling on the ground. He felt violently sick to his stomach, then his vision went black for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, he was retching, vomiting on the ground. The bile spewed from his throat and he saw black again. When he woke back up again, it was to Peter screaming his name.

He looked up blearily, forcing past the blazing pain in his leg. Peter was looking at him as he nailed Hammerhead in the shoulder, pushing him back. His eyes were wide and terrified as he looked at where Harley was kneeling, but Harley could do nothing more than stare back at him with half-closed eyes. Peter couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away until a backhand from Hammerhead sent him flying. Peter quickly jumped to his feet and pressed his web-shooters, but nothing happened. Harley could hear him cursing as he hurried backward.

He launched himself at Hammerhead, and Harley thought that maybe he was aiming for the face, but Hammerhead ducked ever so slightly, and Peter’s fist slammed into the wide expanse of his forehead.

Peter cried out, clutching his hand and stepping back, but the other man didn’t even flinch. Peter’s back hit the wall, and Harley could see his face pale as he clutched his hand and Hammerhead loomed over him. His nose and cheek were bleeding, and there was a bruise forming around his eye, and he yelled out as Hammerhead grabbed him around the throat and lifted him off the ground. Peter’s face drained of all color as he struggled and kicked with the good hand he had left, but it was to no avail.

“You’re very useful to us too, you know. As Peter Parker, not as Spider-Man.” Harley couldn’t see Hammerhead’s face, but he watched Peter’s face. “You’re going to make us very rich, and then you’ll be dead. And the city will live on without Spider-Man, under my control.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Peter said, gritting his teeth. “I’m going to stop you.”

“And how?” Hammerhead slung his fist into Peter’s gut. “Do you plan?” Another punch, this one in the center of his chest. “On doing that?” His next punch slammed straight across the side of his head. Peter’s head snapped to the side and he collapsed to the ground, silent. 

Harley could only watch in horror as Peter’s eyes rolled up in his head and stopped moving. He stared at Peter’s body, hardly noticing Hammerhead until he was right in front of him.

“Grab him,” he snapped at Kir as she walked past him. She motioned to two more men, and they followed her to Peter’s fallen form. Harley’s eyes followed Peter as he was carried to the car, hoping that maybe he would wake up then, that he was just pretending. His hand dangled off his side, and Harley could see the broken fingers swelling and bruising. Blood dripped off his face and out from his nose, trailing down his face and neck. The only relief he got was watching the shallow rise and fall of his chest and knowing he wasn’t dead.

“You’ve got Peter,” Harley said, his eyes lowered to the ground. Every muscle in his body ached, his thigh was pulsing in pain, and whatever emotions he had held inside him had disappeared when Peter was picked up. “I’m pretty sure I’m done now. I played my part.”

“Even after all you did to hurt him, Peter Parker would throw himself in harm’s way to make sure you were safe. You’re something special to him, aren’t you?” Harley said nothing, and kept his face to the ground. Strong fingers gripped his jaw and forced his head up, and Harley could see his expression in the gold-shaded sunglasses. “Yeah, I think we’ll need to keep you around for a little bit longer.”

“No,” Harley pleaded, beginning to struggle once again, a mixture of defeat and fear washing over him. “No, no, you said I was done. You said after this I would be done, that I could leave this all behind.”

“Did I?” With a wave of his hand, Harley was forced to stand on his own two feet, and he bit his tongue to keep from exclaiming at the wave of pain that washed through them. He stood slightly taller than Hammerhead, but he felt so much shorter. “I believe that was some wishful thinking on your part.” He snorted. “See you on the boat.”

Harley barely had time to feel the explosion of pain across his face before it all went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um. don't kill me?
> 
> comment and scream your feelings out so i can laugh at you lmao (jk)  
> or talk to me on tumblr @the-end-of-endgame  
>  i'll do my best to console you either way <3   
> Next chapter: Monday, June 24 (i'm so sorry i swear i didn't mean for it to end this way i only realized it last week and it was too late but i'm going to a summer camp with no internet/electronics allowed so i can't update for a week. please don't kill me i'm sorry)


	12. Chapter Eleven / Boats and the Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter ends up on a boat, the author does some fun setup for the next book, there's some talking. It's the end, basically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bitch chapter. bastard writing. bad boy.  
> seriously this chapter was an asshole and a half and did not want to be written but I beat it into submission and now you have this! It's here, thank god!

Peter’s eyes snapped open, looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling. He heaved in a breath, but immediately fell back; his ribs screamed at the effort.

Someone was moving around him, passing back and forth behind his head. Peter tried to strain his head to see who it was, but his eyes felt like they were swelled shut, and it took a few seconds to open them.

His limbs felt heavy, too heavy to pick up, and there was a weight on his chest that was making it difficult to breathe. He opened his mouth and let out a wordless croak, mouth unbearably dry.

“Interesting.” Peter was still having trouble opening his eyes all the way, but he could see a small sliver of his vision. A willowy man with red hair was walking around him, holding a clipboard. “So you’re awake already.”

“Where ‘m I?” Peter slurred. His entire head felt like it was filled with thick cotton, pushing all around him. He had a splitting headache, pulsing throughout this head.

The man picked up two large syringes. One was empty, and the other was filled with a clear substance. “I work for a lot of different people in this city, you know,” he said softly, ignoring Peter’s question. “A lot of different, powerful people.”

Peter began wiggling, but now he could feel the straps on his arms and legs and he didn’t have the strength to break free of them yet. “What ‘re you doin’?”

“And many of my employers would pay very handsomely for the blood of New York’s most famous mutant.” A spike of fear shot down Peter’s spine, and he could feel the hairs on his arms and legs rising underneath his suit, rubbing against the flexible metal. “Your suit poses quite the problem, however. It’s impossible to get in under these metal fibers.” He gripped Peter’s bruised jaw, tilting his head back. Peter cried out at the pressure, willing his strength to come back quicker so he could move his arms again. “And though she doesn’t know it, Kir did me a favor by making sure that pesky mask was off.”

Peter turned his neck in a feeble attempt to twist the man’s hand off, but it held firm, lifting the back of his head off the table. The cold wipe on his skin made him hiss and recoil as rubbing alcohol dripped into a cut on his neck.

“I’m always worried that these things might go horribly wrong, so I like having a backup plan.” The prick of the needle felt like it was driving far too deep into Peter’s neck, and the hand around his jaw tightened to keep him in place as he strained upward.

“You are strong,” the man said rather gleefully, pressing his elbow hard into Peter’s sternum to push him back on the table. The needle disappeared, and Peter briefly saw a vial of red blood pass in front of his vision.

“You don’t know what you’re messing with.” Peter did his best to keep his voice steady. “That’s dangerous. My blood isn’t something to mess around with, man.”

Another needle entered at a different point in his neck, and Peter thrashed as he fought to escape the sting of the needle. He felt something give under him, a strap breaking.

“Well, that won’t do.” A third needle plunged into his neck, and Peter felt a cool sensation spread throughout him, like waves washing over him. He jerked himself up to fight the rising tide, but his eyes slammed shut before he could lift his head.

The next time he woke, he was lying in a completely different direction than he had been before. Instead of lying down on a table, he felt almost suspended in the air, but vertically. His eyes felt less puffy; the swelling around them had already healed. Peter opened his eyes blearily, staring out at the water and the sun setting over the New York skyline.

Frowning at the unprecedented sight, Peter tried to move his arms and legs. He just barely could feel his limbs suspended above him, and he found he couldn’t move them. He flicked his eyes up and saw thick chains encompassing them, rubbing uncomfortably against the metal of his suit. Peter willed his arms to move, to pull apart, but they felt as heavy as steel. His legs felt similarly, weighed down with a trillion tons, pulling and pulling. He flicked his eyes down and, yep, his legs were similarly encased in metal bonds. He tried to even move his ankles, but he could barely feel them beyond a quiet hum. He tried to look around, only to find that he couldn’t even move his head. Couldn’t open his jaw, couldn’t even move his eyebrows. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a low, wordless groan.

“Comfortable?” 

Hammerhead’s low, nasally voice came from behind Peter, but he was forced to wait until the large man sauntered in front of him and into Peter’s line of sight. Peter clenched his jaw, working to free his body from the paralyzed prison he was finding himself in.  He grunted, trying to force out a rebuttal, and Hammerhead just laughed at his failure.

Peter squinted at him with narrowed eyes and noticed with satisfaction the cuts and bruises peeking out from underneath Hammerhead’s collar. He laughed in his throat and found himself able to force out a few weak chuckles as feeling slowly crept back into his face, unfreezing his neck and vocal cords.

“No time like the present, I suppose,” the man said flippantly, pulling out a phone that Peter recognized as his own from his sweatshirt pocket. “I would have preferred to dispose of you and Stark at night, but I suppose some things can’t wait.” His large fingers tapped at the screen, which he then held up to Peter’s face. “Let’s have Tony Stark see what’s become of you, hm?”

Warmth was slinking back into Peter’s face, but he kept his jaw clenched and unmoving as the caller ID for “Mr. Stark” buzzed on the screen.

“FRIDAY, answer. Hey, kid, glad to see the fry didn’t affect your phone this time.” Tony had his head bent over a red and gold metal arm, and was clearly not paying attention to the screen. “Hey, so I tried to call you earlier, but your suit was already down. You know how I was telling you about that kid I used to know, Harley Keener?”

It felt like the paralysis in his limbs, only it stuck in his lungs, and suddenly Peter couldn’t breathe. The man holding Peter’s phone gave a great booming laugh, catching Tony’s attention just as FRIDAY said, “Boss, according to my facial analysis it appears that Peter has been harmed.” Tony’s head jerked up, the tools in his hand clattering to the table.

“Go get the kid.” Hammerhead snapped his fingers at someone behind Peter.

“Pete? Kid, what’s going on? FRIDAY-”

“Tracing phone location now.” Peter heard a door open and close behind him, and footsteps thundering down stairs. 

“Better hurry, Stark. There are quite a few things I want from you, and you don’t have much time,” Hammerhead warned.

“What do you want.” Tony’s voice was flat and stern, a slight tremor of rage simmering underneath his outwardly calm facade.

Hammerhead chuckled. “Don’t bother wearing the suit, you won’t be needing it. Just give us what we want, and we’ll let the kid go.”

Peter pushed the words from his lungs, pushing down the panic to make way for a warning. “Mr. Stark they’re going to kill you, I know they’re going to- I can’t  _ move _ , Tony-”

Peter wished the paralysis encompassing him was also numbing, but he felt every bit of the punch that struck him across the face, twisting his neck to the side as a large fist mashed into an already cut and bruised cheek. His plea was melted into a scream that was ripped from his throat, caught off-guard and virtually helpless.

“Peter!” He heard Tony yell, but it was muffled behind his own ragged breathing and pounding heartbeat. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth again, a wound inside his cheek reopening. 

“Hurry up, Stark. I won’t ask twice.” The phone, which had dropped to the ground when Hammerhead punched Peter, was quickly crushed underfoot. The frozen image of Tony’s open mouth and horrified eyes winked out, leaving a black and horrifically cracked screen.

Hammerhead looked at him, a seething fire in his eyes before he punched him once more. Peter heaved, splattering blood onto the deck. The two punches, by some stroke of luck, had allowed feeling to reenter his face and upper body, but his limbs were still buzzing and immobile. So, he turned his head to face Hammerhead and spat at him. Hammerhead looked at him with the same raging inferno, calming wiping the blood and spittle off his cheek before reaching up and snatching one of Peter’s hands and-

Peter nearly blacked out from the wave of pain that washed over him as Hammerhead grabbed his broken hand and squeezed, rebreaking a few bones in a snap that Peter could feel as a vibration throughout his whole body, a rough, sharp pain that shot down his back. He focused on his breathing, on staying conscious, and not on the throbbing agony trapped above him. He could feel tears dripping down his face, but he stared out at the ocean and pretended like they weren’t there.

“I’m going to give him ten minutes, then your body gets thrown overboard and you drown,” Hammerhead snarled, finally releasing his grip.

Peter exhaled shakily, keeping his eyes focused on the fading sunlight, waiting. For what, he wasn’t sure.

A gunshot sounded underneath the deck floorboards, and Hammerhead looked sharply downward. “What the hell…” he trailed off. “Go check on the other one,” he directed. There was an absence of movement and sound, and Hammerhead stamped his foot on the ground and roared. “Now!”

Peter bit the inside of his cheek, the side that wasn’t already cut. He wanted to argue for Harley, say something to protect him, but his brain was still confused on the whole situation and he didn’t know what he could say. He hadn’t gotten a good look at Harley since he had been shot, and he had no clue where he was, only that he assumed he was down below. “Why don’t you just let him go? He’s just a civilian.” Even that word felt misapplied, but Peter didn’t have another word to replace it with.

Hammerhead shrugged. “He’s a good bargaining tool. For you and Stark, it seems.”

“Not me.” Peter’s chest tightened as he spoke, but he couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. “I don’t care.”

“Well, Peter Parker might not care because of recent… events, betrayals, what have you. But I’m sure Spider-Man still cares about civilians, and it’s always interesting to find out how much one person can take before they’re begging for a bullet in their brain.”

Peter could wiggle his fingertips. A few more minutes, and he could snap the chains. He just needed to stall and hope Mr. Stark wouldn’t arrive first.

A red and gold streak took flight, and was rocketing toward the boat. The suit barrelled down toward them, and Peter thought he might be sick again. Then, he squinted. A small, barely perceptible projectile had broken away from the suit, but it flew in the other direction and disappeared as quickly as Peter had caught a glimpse of it. 

“You know, I didn’t get the opportunity to see your ugly face from behind the phone, and now I just wish I was blind.” Tony Stark hovered in the air over the deck, golden fire pulsing out of his hands and feet. His head turned to look at Peter. “So much for that secret identity, huh? How you holding up, kid?” 

Peter’s jaw trembled as he tried to shape his face into a brave smile. “I’ll be fine, Mr. Stark, just a little stuck right now.”

“Now, now, Stark, I told you not to bring the suit.” Hammerhead admonished, interrupting the two. 

“Yeah, well, you didn’t exactly provide any other transportation, pal,” Tony sniped, voice angry and weary.

Hammerhead smiled cruelly, teeth poking out from hard lips. “How about you set your feet on the ground and we can discuss arrangements for returning Peter Parker to you.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so. How about instead, we-”

Hammerhead raised his hand in a two-fingered salute, and Peter heard a high-pitched whine.

The net flew over Peter’s head just as he screamed out a warning. Tony swerved, but the same net that had pulled Peter down caught the side of Tony’s suit and wrapped around him, flashing a bright purple before the flaming thrusters sputtered out and Tony was on the deck. The suit made a horrible screech as it scraped against the deck as Tony writhed in place. Peter could hear him muttering commands and codes in desperate attempts to get his suit to come back on, but none of it seemed to work, and soon Iron Man was lying still. No sound could be heard but labored breathing from inside the suit. 

Hammerhead laughed, the same cruel laugh that Peter thought he might hear in his nightmares. “Who would’ve thought that all you needed to take down Tony Stark was a little alien technology and some vibranium. Go on, Stark,” Hammerhead jeered. “Try it. Try to break out, see how that works out for you.”

Tony didn’t move, and fear gripped Peter’s heart. “His heart,” he gasped. “The arc reactor, you-”

“All the easier to dispose of him, then.” Hammerhead leaned over Tony’s unmoving body. “Once we get rid of you, the balance in New York will shift. The Avengers will crumble without you, and the city will be without its leader, and I will take control.”

Tony’s cough was muffled underneath the metal suit. “You really have overestimated my importance to this city. And by the way, arc reactor? Not connected to my body anymore. Still kicking, unfortunately.”

“Nothing has changed. You’re still trapped within your curse of a metal suit, and New York will fall to me.”

“All that ego and it still isn’t as big as your massive fucking forehead. You really think I rushed in here with no preparation just because my- because Spider-Man was in danger?”

Hammerhead grabbed the man by the throat, dragging him upward and over the edge of the boat. “I think it doesn’t matter because you won’t live to see what happens to him.”

“Oh my god, could you get any more dramatic? Your plan is stupid, fivehead. It isn’t going to work, and here’s why.”

“Not interested,” Hammerhead snarled. “I’d rather kill you now.” Peter clenched his body, about to pull his hands apart and break the chains.

“Keep your hands up, Underoos!” Tony yelled suddenly. Peter looked up at his hands, and at first, didn’t see anything.

There was a click on the back of Peter’s right hand, then a warm sensation spread throughout him like fire. The chinks where his suit had been digging uncomfortably into his skin loosened and Peter suddenly felt like he could breathe properly. 

He pushed himself up to snap the chains around his wrists when a shot rang out, a bullet he narrowly twisted to the side to avoid. The shot blew past him and struck Hammerhead in the arm, who had turned back to catch what had happened to Peter. However, Tony was still dangling over the water, so when the bullet forced its way through Hammerhead’s arm, his hand opened reflexively and dropped Tony into the ocean.

Peter screeched, activating the mask back over his head as soon as enough of his systems had rebooted. He jerked his arms down and legs up, curling into a ball to yank the chains from their place. As soon as he tumbled to the floor, he rolled out of the way of Hammerhead’s swiping grasp and yanked his arms and legs apart. As he did so, his head swung to the other side of the boat, where he could see several average looking bad guys with various guns and weapons, which wasn’t good, but Peter also saw Harley, standing there with a smoking gun in his hands.

Peter blinked his eyes several times before he was forced to dodge another one of Hammerhead’s grabs. He leaned over the edge of the boat just as Iron Man disappeared underneath the waves. Peter leaned over the side, plunging his suit into icy cold water that leaked into his suit and up his arm as he reached, reached, reached for Tony Stark. With his other hand, he shot a web at Hammerhead, only enough to knock him back a few feet. His spider-sense pricked almost painfully, and he could tell by sound alone how the people on the other end of the boat were coming for him.

A hand grasped his, metal and burning cold. Peter gasped with relief and yanked upward, pulling Tony out of the water as quickly as he could. Another hand grasped his arm as he was pulled up, and Tony’s entire suit was shaking and trembling as the man inside shivered. Peter webbed the center of his chest plate and pulled him away, leaping to the far side of the boat and pulled Tony with him. “Hold on, Mr. Stark, you’re going to be okay. Just, uh-”

“K-k-kid,” Tony chattered. “T-tell Ka-Karen to unlock the- the Reboot P-protocol. The same thing that’s on your hand.”

Peter looked at the back of his hand and saw a thin red and gold square that covered it. “Uh, okay, okay, okay, Karen, are you back?” Peter shouted, shooting web after web at the quickly approaching men. He heard a ripping noise as Hammerhead yanked his hand out of the webs Peter had put him in, and squashed down the building panic in his lungs as Tony wheezed out an exhale.

“I am online, Peter.” Karen’s voice was a greater comfort to Peter than he had thought it would be, and he let out a shaky laugh.

“Thank god. Okay, uh, unlock the Reboot Protocol.”

“Please give a destination, otherwise it’ll come to you.”

“Uh, the Iron Man suit. Behind me.” Peter knocked more guns overboard, twisting and dodging his way through a slew of bullets both regular and disabling. His fist connected with the first few people to get close to him, knocking them in the stomach and face before webbing them all together and bringing them to the ground.

“On it. It’ll be here in a minute.”

“I’ll be f-f-fine, kid. Go get the bad guys,” Tony said, his arm shaking as he curled his metal fingers into a thumbs up.

“You got it, Mr. Stark.” Every part of Peter was tired, his limbs ached, his head throbbed, and he was pretty sure he had some broken ribs. His hand, too was screwed up. Peter hadn’t had a chance to see what had happened to it, but none of the fingers could move without being accompanied by excruciating pain, which made using the web shooter on his right wrist a lot more difficult. He pushed through the pain best he could, falling back to his left side when it got too much. As soon as all of the guns had been tossed overboard or webbed to the ground, Peter was quickly able to take care of the rest of the men. He looked at each of them as he webbed them to the ground or the side of the ship, but he didn’t see Harley within them, and he wasn’t sure how that was making him feel.

“Okay, and I’m back,” Tony said, grabbing the side of the boat as he pulled himself up. “Jeez, that water was cold. Thank god for suit heaters. Now-”  Tony pushed himself into the air, and there was the familiar whine of his repulsors. “You move, buster, and I’ll show you exactly what happens when you mess with my intern. Web him up, Spider-Man.”

Peter gave a mock salute before firing web after web. It became a lot easier to pin Hammerhead to the boat once he wasn’t moving or tearing at his webs. Within a few seconds, very little of the once-formidable boss could be seen underneath the mass of white webbing.

Tony’s exhale was metallic coming through the suit. “Wow. Not the evening I had planned on, but you’re safe, which is what’s important.”

Peter lowered his hand just as his suit alerted him of his low supply of web fluid. His brain was bouncing in a million different directions, trying to categorize and organize everything he could remember happening. The adrenaline flooded out of his system, and Peter didn’t even recognize that he was sitting on the ground until Tony was kneeling next to him and pulling his faceplate back. “I’m okay,” he slurred. “Jus’ a little winded.”

“Yeah, I think you’ve been pushing yourself to the limit for a while, buddy. What’s with the hand cradled to your chest?”

Peter frowned. “What’s Project Reboot?”

“Well, you saw it in action. I reversed the effect those guns had on technology so that our suits and whatever other tech got fried could come back online. Can we take off the suit now, and figure out exactly how injured you are this time?”

“Mhm,” Peter mumbled, but then his vision blurred slightly. Tony turned fuzzy as his eyes focused on another figure far behind him. In the shadows, it was hard to see who it was at first, but Peter could make the outline of a gun, so he said. “Another one. Behind you. I got… I got low webs.”

Tony whipped around, palm pulsing with energy. “My way isn’t as family-friendly as his webs,” he warned. “Drop the gun, right now.”

Peter recognized the shape of the person’s hair and shoulders right before they released his gun, and a choked “Oh” left his mouth as the gun clattered to the deck.

“What the fuck,” Tony cursed. “Harley? Is that you?” His voice was trembling, on the edge of breaking.

Harley posture was curled inward as he stuck his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, but he said nothing.

“Why are you even on this boat? How’d you even get on here?” Tony asked. When there was no response, Tony continued. “Are you deaf, or something? Mute? Answer the freaking question, kid.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter muttered, anger and betrayal and  _ hurt _ coursing through him as his eyes fell upon Harley’s lowered eyes, his messy hair falling across his face. “He’s the whole reason this happened in the first place. He was working with them.”

“What? I thought you guys were roommates. I thought you were dating him.”

“Yeah,” Peter huffed. The words hurt his chest, but they were true. “So did I.”

“That’s not true,” Harley said indignantly, stepping a little closer to them. Peter could see the dried blood surrounding his thigh, and flinched. “I didn’t know I was working for that thick-headed asshole over there. I thought- I thought-” his face flattened into a thin line, and he seemed to be unable to come up with anything else to say.

“If you weren’t working for him directly, then was that woman lying? Back in the alley, about designing the weapons, about breaking into a Stark warehouse, about  _ shooting me _ ?”

Tony inhaled sharply, looking between the two.

Harley’s silence was answer enough for Peter, and he was saved from having to explain anything else to Tony when he saw flashing red-and-blue lights in his peripheral. “Did you call the police? Not all of them are on our side. Some of them helped him to escape the first time.” He wasn’t sure who he was really talking about, but he also realized it didn’t matter, it was the same thing.

“I know. These guys are on the right side, though. I made sure of it. No need for you to fight any more enemies than you have to at this point.” Tony left Peter sitting numbly on the deck floor as he talked to the police. Peter stared at Harley the entire time and could feel Harley’s eyes looking straight back at him. It pained him to look into the eyes of the person who had put him in this entire situation, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away. In just a few minutes thankfully, Tony was back and Peter could look at him.

“Alright, here’s the plan, Spider-Man. NYPD is gonna take care of this mess on the boat, and I’m going to get you to the hospital. Sound good?”

Peter nodded, but his eyes flicked back to Harley in a wordless question.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony said seriously. “Don’t worry about that right now, let’s just-” Peter grunted, his sore ribs jostled as Iron Man’s hands scooped him up. “Let’s just get out of here.”

The last thing Peter could see from the boat was Harley’s face, slack and terrified as uniformed officers boarded the boat.

“I’m going back for Harley. Gonna take him to the Tower for his injuries. I just can’t carry both of you safely,” Tony explained. “He’s going to be okay.”

“He- he shot Hammerhead. That’s why you fell in the water and nearly-” Peter’s breath caught in his throat, choking on worry and emotion.

“Yeah, that wasn’t fun. But I owe that kid a huge debt. Bigger than anyone else, ever.”

“What happened?”

Tony’s head shook, very slightly. “I really screwed up, that’s what happened. But I’m going to try to make it up to him. Best I can, anyway. Time won’t heal all wounds. I know that firsthand.”

Peter had no clue what Tony was talking about, but he was too tired to care. His eyes drooped shut underneath the mask, and he would have fallen asleep if it hadn’t been for Tony shaking him. “Nope. Wake up, Petey. FRIDAY is telling me you’ve got a concussion, so you need to stay awake at least until we get to the hospital, okay?”

“Mkay,” Peter said. The next several minutes passed in a haze of pain as Tony carried him into the hospital, where doctors with unrecognizable faces took off his suit and put him in a hospital gown. Tony disappeared after that, returning a few minutes later with another boy of similar stature in his arms. That boy was able to stand on his own two feet when Tony put him down in the same hospital room, and as soon as his feet touched the floor he pushed himself away from Tony like he had been burned, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. Doctors grabbed his shoulders as he fainted, and immediately wheeled him out of the room on a stretcher.

“Where’s he goin’?” asked Peter, who had been told he had to stay awake until his scans were examined.

“Surgery.” The suit retracted, and Tony stood in normal clothes, face pale. “They’ve got to take the bullet out of his thigh.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, a little deliriously. “He got shot by that woman, with the braids. I don’t know what he was doing, though. Why’d he do that?”

Tony sat down next to his bed. “I think that woman was arrested. Dark skin, tall, long hair in braids?”

“Mhm,” Peter said, cracking the bones in his unbroken hand. “Probably. Hey!” He looked at Tony with wide eyes. “There was a guy with, with, uh, red hair. He was also tall. He took my blood, but he was not a doctor. Did they get him?”

“I don’t know. He took your blood?”

Peter nodded, but it hurt his head so he stopped. “Yeah. Said it was for a backup plan. Which isn’t good. My blood is dangerous ‘n radioactive ‘n stuff.”

“Yeah, that’s not good. I’ll have someone look into that.” As Tony spoke, the ward door opened. A woman with short dark hair walked in, holding a manilla file.

“It doesn’t look like your pupils are dilated,” the doctor said after examining his eyes. “And it looks like you’re holding a conversation with Mr. Stark just fine, so you’re all clear to go to sleep if you think you need it. Your healing factor will likely take care of most everything else by the time you wake up.”

“Oh thank god,” Peter said before promptly passing out.

When he woke, sunlight was streaming in through the large bay windows on the side of the room. Peter turned his head away from the offending light and tried to bury his head facing the other way, but that led his eyes to rest on another hospital bed.

A hospital bed where Harley Keener lay.

He almost looked peaceful, lying on his back with his hair flopping into his eyes. There was a plaster on his nose where Peter assumed he had been punched, and bruises dotted his neck, creeping past what Peter could see. Despite the injuries, Harley’s breathing was the same as it always was when he slept, quiet snores and little puffs of breath. Peter watched him for a while, fondness and a fierce emotion gripping his chest. He knew he didn’t know the whole story, but it was hard not to look at Harley and not think about everything that had happened over the last twenty four hours.

Time must have passed, but Peter wasn’t acutely aware of how long. Harley stirred after some time, eyes blinking open and face scrunching in pain as his brain caught up to the rest of his injuries. “Ow,” he groaned. “Motherfucker, everything fuckin’ hurts. Goddamn.”

Peter’s breath caught in his chest, hearing Harley speak again. Harley must have heard his inhale because he turned his head to face Peter.

“Hey there, darlin’.” Once-sweet words turned sour in Peter’s ears, and he felt his face fall flat and neutral, an uncomfortable feeling twisting in his stomach at what once brought him so much happiness. Harley’s face dropped. “Sorry. Shouldn't've… uh. How’re you feeling?”

It was too much. The small talk, the casualness of it all, the fact that Harley wasn’t even  _ addressing  _ what had happened, didn’t even look like he cared about it. Peter threw back the covers, pushing his legs over the side. His body was still stiff and sore, the bruises around his neck not entirely healed. He could tell his ribs were still in pretty bad shape, along with his hand and head, but he was able to move. “I’m fine,” he said sharply. “Gonna go to my room if anyone asks.”

Harley sat up. “You have a room here?”

Peter turned back to him halfway out the door. The covers had fallen down on him, and Peter could see more clearly the smattering of bruises covering his neck and chest. Peter looked harder for just a minute more, and his heart nearly stopped at the sign of three puncture marks on the side of Harley’s neck.

Peter touched his neck unconsciously, but his wounds had already closed up. Harley looked at him questioningly, maybe waiting for a response to his first question, maybe about to ask another, but Peter didn’t think he could stomach another second in the same room as Harley. He left, taking the elevator up to the room that he had kept in the Tower since he first started his “internship”. 

On his way to his room, he ran into Tony, who was just leaving his room down the hall in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. “Oh, hey kid. Tired of being cooped up?”

Peter shook his head. “What’s happening with Harley?”

“Harley’s fine. They got him out of surgery and actually put him in your room, I think.”

“Yeah. I know.” Peter tried to reign back the frustration in his voice, but it came out clipped and angry. “What happened? How do you know him? How did-” frustration gave way to tears, and Peter leaned his head against the wall to try and get his bearings. “He helped kidnap me. How did I think I might fall in love with him?” His voice broke in the last sentence, and he clenched his fists at his sides to try to control himself.

“Let’s… let’s go sit down. I’ll make breakfast… or lunch now, I guess. Late lunch.” Tony put a hand on Peter’s back and guided him to the kitchen. No one was there except the two of them, so Peter sat down at the table while Tony started making them some grilled cheese.

“Do you remember that brief stint that happened, oh, a few months after the Battle of New York, when everyone thought I was dead for a few months?”

“Not really,” Peter said. “I was too young, I think.”

“Well, I ended up crash-landing in Tennessee and dragging myself and my busted suit to some random garage. It was winter, probably close to the same time it is now, near Christmas.” The grilled cheese was set onto the hot pan, and a slight sizzling noise began to fill the air. “Well, inside that garage was some run-down equipment and a small kid with a potato gun, of all things.”

“Harley,” Peter said, a sour taste growing in his mouth again.

“It was actually a pretty cool gun, but it only had space for one piece of ammo. And yeah. It was Harley Keener.”

“So, what happened?”

“Well, a bunch of things. A whole adventure, to be honest. But after it all, I, uh, fixed up his garage, sent him a bunch of new stuff, new equipment. Y’know, Christmas presents and all that jazz. Then,” Tony flipped both sandwiches. “Well, I tried to keep in contact with him. He was only a kid and didn’t really have a cell phone or anything like that. I had his address, though. I mailed him birthday presents and cards, I did what I could. I sent him a cell phone a few years in, thought maybe he’d want to reconnect or something.”

“Did he?” It was so, so strange to picture Harley talking to Tony as a younger kid, and Peter still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around this whole revelation.

“No. I never heard anything. I still sent him presents, but I never heard back. But, part of that is on me, because I never-” Tony slammed a fist against the kitchen counter suddenly, gripping the red spatula in his hand so tight his knuckles were whitening. “I never did anything else  _ but _ send him gifts. I never checked up on him, I never tried to contact him another way, I didn’t-” Tony shook his head, turning off the heat and transferring the sandwiches to one plate. 

“Did something happen?” Peter asked as the plate was set in front of him.

“Two years after I visited Tennessee, his mom died. I only just found this out last night, before I got the call from you. Peter.” And Peter had only rarely heard Tony’s voice so weary, so distraught. “He was in an orphanage for years. He never responded because I never knew he left in the first place.”

Peter’s hand froze around the warm pieces of bread. Puzzle pieces were slowing clicking into place in his head, and Peter found himself muttering, “Maybe that’s why he seems to hate you.”

“He hates me?” Tony asked, wincing slightly. “Well, that’s fair, I suppose. I really screwed up. Not much better than...” he trailed off, motioning to 

Peter to eat his food. Peter ate one sandwich in just a few bites as his stomach rediscovered how long it had been since he had eaten. He offered the other one to Tony, but he waved it off. “I already ate,” he said.

So Peter ate the second sandwich. “So, what happens now?” he asked, wiping crumbs from his mouth.

“I don’t know,” Tony sighed. “I want to believe that he’s still that good kid from Rose Hill, and I want to make up for everything I didn’t do for the past several years. But, there’s a lot I don’t know. About him.” He looked at Peter. “What do you think?”

Peter squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. Everything I was thinking- I thought that Harley was the one in trouble at the start, you know? I thought they were coming after him, not that he was helping them come after me.” Peter sighed, running a hand through greasy hair. “What options does he have?”

“We could get the guys who were arrested to confess to Harley designing the weapons, and he could… well, he would go to jail for a while.” Peter felt faint, his head swimming. Even through everything that had happened, Harley behind bars, on the same level as all the other criminals Peter had put behind bars over the years just didn’t sit right with him. 

“And if you didn’t?” he asked hoarsely.

“I don’t think it’s smart to just let him back to what he was doing before, especially when we have no idea what that was. So, the only other option I can think of it having him stay at the Tower for a while until all the weapons are taken care of and he can show that he actually didn’t mean any of it. Or, if he did, that he regrets it. Either way, he’ll effectively be under house arrest for a good while.”

Peter grimaced. “I don’t like either of those,” he said. “Ever since it all went down, I haven’t been able to even look at him without feeling a little sick, and really, just,” he sighed again. “Really confused. I don’t think he should go to jail though. I don’t want that to happen to him,” he conceded.

“Okay. That’s what I was hoping, too. He’s still so young…”

“I put away Kaven’s son at the beginning of this year,” Peter reminded Tony. “No one is too young.”

“God, I wish they were,” Tony said. “You were, too. Too young for all this.”

Peter shrugged, ignoring the way his bruises pulsed with pain. “Too late, I guess.”

Tony grimaced. “Maybe go get some more rest. I’ll go let Harley know.”

Peter stared at his empty plate for a minute before getting up to wash the dishes. As warm water poured over his hands, Peter looked at the bubbles coating the greased pan and tried not to think about the boy from Tennessee who had so quickly and easily entered his life, and how hard it was going to be to extract himself from that familiarity.

He briefly thought of Harley’s soft hair, the way it fell across his forehead when he forgot to brush it. How his eyes sparkled when he laughed at his own terrible jokes. How his hands felt sliding around-

How his lips felt against-

How chest felt pressed against Peter’s back as he-

Peter gripped the plate in his hands so hard that a crack spread from where he was holding it, not enough to break the plate, but enough to damage it. Peter looked at it, and sighed, pushing those memories aside. New memories surfaced, Harley in the warehouse, Harley looking panicked in their room before Peter had told him to run, Harley standing there with a gun in his hand on the ship and doing nothing but harm, causing Tony to fall into the ocean-

Peter dried his hands and rubbed his eyes with his palms. Everything he thought he knew about Harley was mixing in his head, and it hurt, every bit of it.

And he didn’t know what to do about it, except ignore it best he could because dwelling on it was just too damn painful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's the epilogue next, then we take a break so i can figure out the plot of the next book lmao.  
> leave me some kudos and comments, you know I love to hear your thoughts on the chapter :))
> 
> tumblr: the-end-of-endgame
> 
>  Epilogue arriving Friday, June 28
> 
> augustus is a bitch boy and i hate him, just so you all know. absolute dickhead. please act like a human.


	13. Epilogue / New Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley adjusts to his new life in what's really more of another chapter.  
> Then you get a short epilogue, a teaser of what's to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit. We've reached it. An ending, for now.  
> I have to say, I never thought this would ever get completed, but damn if I'm not pleased how it turned out. Big long sappy end note, so get ready for that, I guess.  
> I'll say it up front, though. To you, reading this? Thank you so much, for all of the times you've come back to this story for a new update and kept reading. To those who left kudos and comments and bookmarks, thank you so much. Every single one of you are incredible people and I love all of you so, so much

Harley set the last scrap of metal down and stripped off his gloves. He put them in the garbage can next to his “workspace” and wiped the sweat off his brow. “FRIDAY, can you tell Tony that I’m done for the day?”

“I have alerted him.”

The door to his left slid open with a hiss, and Harley stood up, stretching his arms up to the ceiling. His bones creaked and cracked as he did so, his shoulders still a little sore. He left the lab slowly, still putting more weight on his right leg as he walked. The plaster covering the bullet wound in his left thigh itched as he walked down the hallway, and Harley resorted to gripping the hem of his shirt to keep from picking at it.

The room Tony had given him - Harley was hesitant to call it  _ his  _ room yet, even though it was where he would be staying for an indeterminate amount of time - was located fifteen floors higher than the lab space he had been given, but the elevator ride was short and silent. When the doors opened, Harley blinked his eyes in surprise at the Christmas lights draped along the walls but didn’t think anything of it. He looked to his left, first, for anyone approaching, then continued to the right down the hallways. He wasn’t sure what most of the other rooms were for on this hallway, he had rarely seen anyone enter or exit any of these rooms in the two weeks that he had been staying here, except Peter.

Harley exhaled a long breath as the bedroom door opened. He closed his eyes and smiled very slightly as the image of Peter’s face, his soft curls, his smile. His chest ached with longing, but a bitter taste filled his mouth and he looked at the carpet as he entered the room. He collapsed on the large bed with the soft, dark blue blanket and tried not to think about Peter, but it was like trying not to breathe.

There hadn’t been any words exchanged between them since that morning in the hospital, where Harley had assumed too much and Peter’s face had fallen flat, upset, and Harley knew his eyes well enough to recognize anger behind them. After that, after Tony had come in and explained the last several years and Harley had accepted everything he said with short nods of agreement because he wasn’t stupid. He knew that the alternative to refusing what Tony Stark said was jail, and Harley was lucky that his sentence was only taking apart any weapon designed by him that they could find.

And he understood everything that Tony said, he could even believe him, but he hadn’t forgiven him. Harley didn’t know if he could ever forgive him for the promises, the false hope, the letdowns, the lack of trying, and everything else Harley felt and remembered when he looked at Tony.

Not wanting to think about Tony, Harley’s mind focused on Peter again, or the lack thereof. Peter not being in his life was a sharp pain in his heart that Harley hadn’t thought he’d ever experience. After the hospital, Harley hadn’t even seen Peter for the rest of the week. It was only just a few days ago that Harley had caught a glimpse of him as he walked into Tony’s lab to ask him a question. He hadn’t even really seen Peter, he had seen Spider-Man open a window and jump out of it like they weren’t thousands of feet in the air. Tony looked confused until Harley walked in, then his face cleared in understanding and annoyance, though not directed at Harley. 

“So that’s what the “Liar” protocol is,” Tony said, and it took a few seconds for Harley to understand what he meant, but when he got it, he felt like he had been punched in the gut again. “I’ll have him disband that,” he said offhandedly. “Did you have a question about the dismantling process?”

Laying on his bed, Harley was disturbed from his thoughts by the sound of his phone buzzing.

“Boss is trying to contact you,” FRIDAY said overhead.

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Harley grumbled. Then, as a bit of an afterthought. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Harley pulled out his phone from the pocket of his jeans and swiped to accept the call. “Hey, Harley! If you’re done, you should come down to the Christmas party.” There was noise all around Tony, but Harley could hear Tony’s voice crystal clear and wondered how he did that.

“What are you talking about?” Harley muttered. He was really tired, and laying down on the bed wasn’t helping. Working on dismantling the weapons for several hours plus trying to keep up with his classes as finals approached was leaving him more and more drained each and every night, more drained than he had felt when he was designing the guns in the first place.

“The SI Christmas party. There’s a suit in your closet somewhere, I think. Put it on and come down for a few hours, talk with people.”

“What, like the Avengers, who know all my damn business? SHIELD agents, who are looking to get their hands on me? Pass.” Harley didn’t even want to think about the suit hanging in his closet. Tony said he had bought clothes for him, but Harley had refused to wear them so far. Why, he wasn’t quite sure. It just felt wrong, like calling this room his. It wasn’t. It was just where he was staying. “Plus, I don’t think you’re supposed to release criminals to the public until they’ve completed their sentence.” Peter was probably there also, and Harley didn’t want to risk another window dramatic.

“Harley, we’ve talked about this. You’re not a prisoner. You’re just a… you’re doing community service,” Tony sounded exasperated, it wasn’t the first time Harley had brought it up and he knew it wouldn’t be the last.

Harley snorted. “Whatever you wanna call it, I’m not heading down to that party. I know you’re trying to make up for everything, but you can’t think letting the guy who tried to-” he shook his head. “Who almost-” No. “Who designed dangerous weapons downstairs.” 

Tony clicked his tongue. “Suit yourself,” he said, and Harley noticed he didn’t refute Harley’s previous statement. “Or, don’t, I guess.” Silence on the other end told Harley that Tony had hung up.

Harley threw his phone to the side. He thought about getting up, but he didn’t know what he would do. His limbs were heavy with sleep, and Harley soon found his eyes closing and felt himself sliding into a dreamless sleep.

When Harley blinked open his eyes, he was met with darkness. Squinting his eyes against the harsh brightness of the phone, he saw that it was nearly three in the morning. Harley groaned as he moved, taking note of how clammy and gross he felt. He ran his fingers through his hair and cringed at how greasy it was. Sighing, Harley stood up and walked towards the bathroom. He turned on the bathroom light but frowned at the empty towel rack.

“It’s too fuckin’ late for this,” Harley grumbled, but he was too awake now and felt too filthy to go to bed without taking a shower first, so he opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the dim-lit hallway.

The supply closet was down near the beginning of the hallway, just a few doors away from the elevator. Harley opened up the door and grabbed a large, white towel at random, and was prepared to shut the door and leave until he heard familiar voices echoing down the hallway. Harley clenched his jaw and strained to hear their conversation.

Tony was speaking, and Harley was pretty sure that the man doesn’t know how to lower his voice beyond a normal speaking tone. “Listen, no. It’s nearly three in the morning, and I know for a fact you have an earlier class tomorrow. Just stay the night in your room!”

Harley could hear Peter’s voice, but it was too quiet to distinguish words.

“No, your suit is all the way back in the lab, and there’s no reason to be swinging out so late when you have things to do tomorrow.” A pause. “Why are you being so stubborn on this, anyway? This isn’t an unusual thing.”

Peter’s voice again, still too quiet. 

“He didn’t come to the party, so he’s probably already asleep. You’re not even going to run into him. Just, go sleep in the room you have here? Please? It’ll make me feel a lot better.”

Harley could hear Peter laugh and say something else, then two farewells, and Harley was still standing in the supply closet.

He knew he should just dart back to his room now, avoid it, avoid the fallout Harley knew was coming, avoid seeing Peter and do his best to just move on but-

But he waited for a few seconds anyway, then stepped out, towel in hand. 

Peter paused mid-stride, fingers tugging at the bow tie around his neck. It dangled, half undone against the white shirt.

“What, no alarms?” Harley said harshly.

Peter pressed his lips together. “Mr. Stark made me shut down that protocol.”

Harley nodded stiffly, breath catching in his throat as he took in Peter in a classic suit, perfectly tailored to his form. He had rarely seen Peter look so good and it made him think of the suit Tony had left for Harley, made him think of a different time where maybe they both could have been wearing those suits.

“Where’ve you been?” Harley asked, not failing to catch the way his own voice trembled. “I haven’t really seen you since… well…”

A muscle in Peter’s face twitched where his jaw was clenched. “My room is down here.”

Harley knew that, he knew Peter’s room was the one at the end of the hallway, and he knew that Peter would have to pass by him to get to his room. “Yeah, sure is.” He stepped to the side slightly, closer to the wall than the room he had exited from. Peter frowned, and started to walk forward without another word.

Harley shook his head, clenching his fist in the towel he held. “You can’t just keep doin’ this,” he said.

“Doing what?” Peter’s voice was sharp and cold as he began to walk by Harley. Harley reached out and grabbed Peter’s forearm, fingers closing around material worth more than he knew. Peter stilled, which sent shivers down Harley’s spine. He knew Peter could easily break out of his hold, so why didn’t he move if he was so determined to get to his room?

Peter turned to face him, closer than they had been in nearly two weeks. Harley exhaled in halting, stuttering breaths, staring at him. “I just,” Harley had words he wanted to say, he knew what the words were, but looking at Peter’s lips, looking into Peter’s eyes, and all thought had left his body.

“Yeah?” Peter’s voice was trying to stay neutral but failing, it trembled on that single word.

Harley dropped the towel and abandoned whatever rationality he had left as his free hand explored familiar territory.

Peter’s lips tasted like bright fruit and dark chocolate, bitter and sweet all at once. Harley’s fingers swept up the curve of his neck as Peter leaned deeper into him, lifting up his chin as Harley tilted his head. He took a step forward as Peter took a step back, carding his fingers in Peter’s soft brown hair and pulling ever so slightly, eliciting tiny gasps from Peter’s mouth as Harley tried to reclaim what he had foolishly lost.

Peter’s hands found their place around Harley’s waist as his back pressed up against the hallway wall, and Harley’s other hand rose from Peter’s arm to brace against the wall as he kissed Peter again and again, bursts of euphoria and adrenaline rushing through him with every touch the two of them shared.

Peter’s hands crept up his shirt, spreading around his ribs and for a pleasant second, Harley wondered if they were moving forward with this, if they might be able to-

Then Peter pushed, hard, shoving Harley away from him. “No,” Peter said. “No, this isn’t- I can’t- Harley, you can’t fucking do that, you can’t just kiss me like nothing has changed, like everything is just- just okay between us!”

“I- I mean,” Harley swallowed against his dry throat. “I know things have changed, I mean, I didn’t think I’d be fuckin’ livin’ in Tony Stark’s home of all places, but here we are.”

“No, you still don’t understand- Harley, you’re treating this whole thing like you haven’t had any part in what I’ve been doing the past few weeks.”

“How am I supposed t’ know what you’ve been doin’, you’ve been fuckin’ avoiding me the entire time.”

Peter shook his head. “Fine, you want to know why I’ve been avoiding you? It’s because every time I look at you or I catch a glimpse of you, I can’t think of anything else except those guns you designed. Every time I catch a group of criminals using those weapons to hurt people - the guns you designed, by the way - I think of you. And you- I’ve-” Peter breathed deep, clenching his shaking fists. “I’ve looked at that footage of the day in the warehouse a hundred times, hoping every time that it’s not you pulling the trigger, that you’re not the person who shot me in the fucking shoulder, but it is.”

“Peter, I-”

“And the worst part, the worst part about the whole fucking thing, is that you’ve said nothing about it. You haven’t tried to apologize for any of it, to me, to Tony, to anyone you’ve hurt for what you did. You’re only here because Tony has a soft spot for you, and you chose it because it’s better than jail because you’re a fucking coward, Harley Keener.” Peter was shaking from head to toe by the time he finished speaking, and Harley was torn with the desire to comfort him and to run as far away from his words as possible. 

Because it was all true, every bit of it. Harley Keener was a coward, and he had never felt quite so low.

“Peter, I am sorry, I am. I never meant it to get this big, I never wanted to kill him.”

“You were designing weapons for Hammerhead, Harley. You didn’t want to kill him? What did you think they were going to do instead?”

“I didn’t know it was Hammerhead, I’m telling you!”

“It doesn’t matter! You shouldn’t have been creating weapons in the first place, that’s what the bad guys do!”

“Tony created weapons,” Harley pointed out coldly. “Stop putting him on a fucking pedestal.”

Peter leveled him with a glare. “Mr. Stark learned from his mistakes. Can you say the same about yourself.”

Harley felt hollowed out, shot through his core. He found he could only stare numbly at Peter as he walked by. By the time he found his voice, Peter had nearly reached his door. “I’m trying to change. I really am.”

Peter sighed, wearily. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said. Then, before he stepped through the bedroom door, he looked back at Harley. “I have one question, though. About all this, the last few months.”

“Yeah?”

“Was it all an act?” Peter’s voice trembled. “Caring about this? About us?”

Harley thought he might be sick. “No. No, it wasn’t an act, sweetheart-” his voice cracked, and he felt it in his heart. “It was all real. All of it.”

Peter closed his eyes, face falling. “I almost wish it wasn’t,” he said, nearly too quiet for Harley to hear, but just loud enough to know he was meant to. “It would at least make the heartbreak a little easier.”

Harley’s breathing went ragged. “What- Peter, wait.”

Peter’s door shut behind him, a sliding noise that shut with finality.

Harley entered the room numbly, towel forgotten on the hallway floor. He stepped into the bathroom, taking a few seconds to stand there before he retched his guts into the toilet. After, he wiped his gross, greasy face on his arm and stumbled back to his bed, falling into a fitful slumber that seemed determined to keep him awake until morning.

_______

There were no windows where he worked now, which was fine by Augustus. He missed the boat a little, but one couldn’t afford to be too picky when in this line of work.

Besides, the position he found himself in now was slightly better than his last one, thanks to what he had brought in for them. Blood, some radioactive, some normal. That plus some hair and DNA swabs he was sure neither of them would notice was missing, and, well, his employers had some nice new experiments to play with.

“The radioactive blood is not responding as we hoped, but Subject Two came out quite well after just a few attempts,” the white-coated scientist said from behind the figure before Augustus. “Subject Two was your personal project, right? Your reward?”

“Yes,” Augustus said. “You have Subject One for what you want, but this one…” Augustus stared admiringly at the silent man before him, at the soft curl of his blond hair, at his strong and tall physique. He had plans in mind, nothing that would interfere with his employers, but maybe enough to cause just a little revenge. He had rather liked that boat, after all, and Hammerhead hadn’t been too bad a boss, all things considered.

Agustus clicked his tongue. He needed to throw that away, needed to forget the past and move forward with the job he had now.

Augustus outstretched his hand, and the blond man before him took it. Augustus squeezed tight and smiled thinly.

Now, though, with a partner at his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) wasn't this a fun epilogue !!  
> anyways, it's thank you time.  
> Thank you first and foremost to my closest friend, Em. Em has been with me from the moment we found this ship and I started drafting this. They've been with me through thick and thin with this story, and they're unfortunately the only one cursed with the knowledge of what's to come (sorry). They're honestly the best person in the world and I love them so much (nearly 10 years of friendship comin' up, hot damn!) thank you so much for listening to my crazy ramblings and all the times I randomly text you about this at 3 am because I realized something absolutely insane. You're incredible.  
> Thank you also to the wtaff discord, especially God for inviting me in the first place. I love talking with you all and I'm glad you let me bounce random headcannons off you guys and it's always fun to torment you with the crazy crap I'm writing (this) so thanks for putting up with my wackiness and you all are truely wonderful people.  
> Thanks to some of my irl friends I'm gonna namedrop here- Fiona, Cameron, I'm so sorry if you got annoyed by me shouting when I posted a new chapter, it's just cause I got excited and I really wanted you to read it. I'm so glad you did, though. Y'all are the bomb.  
> Finally, thank you to you all reading this. I said it earlier and I've said it before, but every time I open this page and I see a new comment or an uptick in kudos, my heart jumps. I love reading all your reactions and I love responding to them. You really do motivate me to keep writing this story as long as I know people are reading it. You fuel me, you really do.
> 
> Anyways, so this story is done! Not a very happy ending, but that's what the second book is for... probably. I haven't decided yet to be honest. But we do know that there are a lot of questions that still need to be answered (what that fuckface augustus doin?) and character turmoil to sort through (harley, you've got a big storm comin)  
> See you... in a while. Not sure when, so give me a little bit. I'll post it on my tumblr when I do, so follow me there if you want!   
> Tumblr: the-end-of-endgame  
> hey maybe now that this is done it'll make it into those ao3 feeds of parley fics. I've been trying to get in there for a month now lmao  
> anyway  
> see ya!! Thanks for reading this far lol


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